


To Leap, Perchance To Dream

by DameRuth



Category: Quantum Leap
Genre: Action/Adventure, Fix-It, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2010-05-08
Updated: 2010-05-08
Packaged: 2017-10-09 09:05:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 28,941
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/85506
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DameRuth/pseuds/DameRuth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What happened after Sam's "final leap"?  This did.  (QL series finale fix-it)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Here's a blast from the past. I wrote this back when I was in my early 20s, partly as a scream of rage over the way a series I'd very much loved had ended, and partly as a way to take a break while hacking out my Master's thesis. It was first "published" in the print apa _Phoenix_ (of which I am still a member) in the early 90s. I don't have the guts to go back and re-read/re-edit this piece of juvenailia in detail (why yes, sometimes I'm a chicken about my own writing) but people liked it at the time, and it was such a major undertaking I feel I should archive it somewhere besides the old 3 1/2" floppy on which it resides. I've corrected formatting issues, but otherwise this is the same story that first saw the light lo, these many years ago. I hope it still makes for a good read. :) (Oh, and Bellisario can _still_ kiss my ass.)

_ See the surface, see the rocks  
See my past fly swiftly by  
I feel the water in my lungs  
And wake up screaming for my life . . ._

\-- The Pogues  
"Blue Heaven"

 

Dr. Donna Elise squinted at the computer terminal in front of her and frowned. Wavy horizontal lines unscrolled across the screen, describing jagged peaks and valleys. She'd been looking at them for several minutes, and trying to figure out their significance. Then it hit her, and her eyes widened.

"My God," she breathed, "That's an REM pattern!"

Her two companions blinked at the screen with renewed interest.

"REM? You mean he's dreaming?" asked Admiral Albert Calavicci.

"But that's impossible!" Gushie sputtered, leaning over Donna's shoulder. She barely managed to keep herself from flinching at his breath. No matter how many subtle -- and not so subtle -- hints given to him by his co-workers on Project Quantum Leap, the man never seemed to realize he had a problem.

"Why? What else can he do while he's between times?" Donna said, shrugging. "He's essentially cut off from any sensory input, so why shouldn't he slip into a REM state?"

"But . . . he doesn't have a brain!"

Donna, tired and stressed, broke into a chuckle at that statement. "Oh yes he does, Gushie! If he didn't, we wouldn't be here, would we?"

That threw the programmer for a minute, but he rallied quickly. "I mean, he doesn't have one in a physical sense -- how can he be experiencing any kind of neurological phenomenon?"

Donna sighed. "I don't know. You'd have to ask him --" she waved at the computer screen "-- and he's not exactly available right now." She couldn't keep the crushing weariness out of her voice; Dr. Sam Beckett hadn't been "available" for going on five years, and there was no sign that things were likely to change. She absently rubbed the gold band on her left ring finger, and felt her throat tightening with tears.

_Dammit, Sam, five years you've been gone, and you can still make me cry,_ she thought.

Abruptly, the wavy lines vanished from the screen, and Donna shivered. "We've lost him; he must have finished the Leap."

"Let's hope Ziggy can find him faster than she did last time," Al said, and turned on his heel: off for another bout in the Imaging Chamber, coaching Sam through whatever situation he'd landed in. The routine had become more than a little familiar by now.

Gushie followed Al out of Donna's office, no doubt intending to see if he could help the Project's computer locate "her" lost creator. Donna envied them -- they had clear-cut (though, to be fair, not simple) jobs to do, while she could only sit back and try to think of something constructive to do with herself.

She rubbed her tired eyes and wondered what her husband had been dreaming about.


	2. Chapter One

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the record, I wrote this back when I had an _interest_ in historical reenactment, but hadn't actually done any of it. I'm quite sure now, with 10 years' experience of playing with swords and armor, I'd write this story somewhat differently.

_Will you follow blind, no matter what you find,  
Believing in a trap that's set for all mankind?  
Seems to be no end but you can make it bend -  
Step outside the game, outside the dance of time._

\-- Golden Bough  
"Call Me to the Dance"

Sam Beckett wasn't exactly in a good position to be recalling his dreams, or for doing much thinking at all; he was presently trying to keep from getting whacked over the head. That in itself wasn't unusual -- he'd Leapt into all kinds of action over the years -- but the opponent he was facing would give anyone pause. He was very big, and was dressed in what looked like a cross between a suit of armor and a football player's protective gear; he was also wielding a very large wooden pole, and was going at Sam with outright abandon. From what Sam could make out, he himself was dressed in a similar outfit, carried a heavy wooden shield strapped to his left forearm, and grasped a wooden pole to match his opponent's in his right hand. He fumbled with the gear clumsily, trying to work it into a defensive position, but the items were unfamiliar and he was still disoriented from his Leap.

Within seconds, it was over; the man feinted left, and Sam, his reactions dulled the tail end of the Leap Effect, fell for it. His opponent swung and connected with a jarring blow to Sam's head. Though the headgear he wore protected him from the worst, it was still forceful enough to knock him flat on his back.

The ringing in his ears wasn't quite loud enough to drown out the sound of applause, and past the stars at the edge of his vision, he could see his former opponent bending over him. The man had taken off his helmet, and instead of looking victorious or gloating, he wore a deeply concerned expression.

"Hell, Bjorn, are you okay? I didn't mean to hit you so hard; I thought you were going to duck like you usually do."

"Nigel!" A woman's voice, loud, angry, and rapidly approaching. "What are you trying to do, kill him?! Since when is it legal to put that much force behind a blow?" The owner of the voice appeared at the edge of Sam's blurred vision and gave the kneeling man at his side a shove that knocked him back onto his rear.

Then she bent over Sam and gingerly reached out towards his head, as if wondering whether to attempt to take off his helmet.

"Bjorn?" She bit her lip, and the worried, frightened expression on her face spurred Sam to find his voice.

"I'm okay," he told her, "just a little groggy . . ." He tried to sit up, and his head spun queasily. "Actually, I'm a lot groggy."

"Well that's no surprise, with the way this Neanderthal clobbered you!" she snarled, and Sam could see her fear and concern being converted into anger. One of those people who preferred feeling furious to feeling helpless, then, the analytical side of his fogged brain decided.

"Hey!" the accused Neanderthal -- Nigel -- yelled. "I didn't mean to! I thought he'd duck the way he always does, Cass . . ."

"You still didn't have to swing so hard!"

That obviously scored points. "But it looks so impressive that way," Nigel mumbled, "the crowd loves . . ."

"I don't care what the bloody crowd loves! You'd damn well better watch what you're doing when you're fighting my brother, or I'll . . ."

Sam felt it was time to intervene. He sat up further (gladly noticing that his head didn't spin quite so much this time), and touched the woman's -- his sister's -- shoulder. "I'm okay, uh, Cass. He didn't get me that badly. I was just stupid enough to have my head in the wrong place at the wrong time. How about a truce for a moment?" He carefully lifted off his helmet as he spoke, and took his first good look at this newly-acquired sibling.

Dark hair, dark eyes, fair skin, and features that were pleasant enough to be attractive, though not truly beautiful. He placed her age somewhere in the middle twenties. She wore a long, wine-red dress of a vaguely Medieval cut, with a low waist and a laced bodice. A wreath of flowers wrapped with ribbons sat slightly askew on her neatly braided dark hair, and Sam reached out automatically to straighten it, the kind of thing he would have done for his own sister, Katie. When Cass realized what he was doing, she reached up herself and settled the wreath into place by touch, with what looked like the ease of long practice. She managed a smile, and Sam could see how worried she'd really been. He smiled back, reassuringly, and decided he liked this new sister of his.

At that point, other people began to converge on the scene, and things got confusing. Nigel was pushed away, still trying to apologize, and a middle-aged man wearing distinctly Renaissance garb looked Sam over and pronounced him sound; despite his rather outlandish outfit, Sam could tell the man was an experienced doctor, and trusted his opinion. Then a thirtyish woman with a stern face, a brightly-embroidered dress, and the word "official" stamped all over her helped Sam to his feet, briefly aided by a teenaged boy in a roughspun brown tunic. Standing, Sam had a better view of his surroundings. He was in the middle of a wide patch of trampled grass, ringed with trees and shrubs, and washed in either late-afternoon or early-morning light; on the whole, it felt more like afternoon than morning. A crowd of people had gathered around the edges of the grass, apparently to watch the sparring matches that had been taking place. Several pairs of individuals in home-made armor stood at other points in the clearing, leaning on wooden weapons and watching Sam and his little group. In fact, Sam was the center of attention; the expressions of the audience ran from worry to amusement to rather morbid fascination. Once it became apparent that he was going to stay on his feet, ragged applause broke out, and several of the armored fighters gave him a thumbs-up before facing off with their opponents once more. Suddenly aware of all the eyes still on him, Sam raised his wooden "sword" in a sketchy salute that brought a sprinkling of appreciative laughter from the audience; at that point, he ceased to be interesting, and the crowd's attention drifted over to the active combatants.

Cass helped him out of the fighting area, fussing over him every step of the way, and Sam began to get the distinct impression that Cass and Bjorn had a long history of looking out for one another; there was a hint of "the two of us against the world" in her remarks. He wondered if this were the result of growing up in a very close family, or of growing up under difficult circumstances with only each other to rely on.

A quick glance over his shoulder gave him a glimpse of Nigel, very contrite in stance and expression, being thoroughly chewed out by the authoritative woman in the embroidered dress. He felt a certain twinge of sympathy for the man; he might have a mean hand with a wooden pole, but he seemed to be a nice enough kid -- maybe in his middle twenties, like Cass -- with a good heart. His main flaw seemed to be that he was a trifle (Sam rubbed the growing knot on his head and winced) overenthusiastic.

It was easy enough to let Cass take the lead, for which Sam was grateful; he hadn't the slightest clue where they were headed. They followed a winding blacktop path through the trees, and Sam realized they were in some sort of city park. Their goal turned out to be a large, rather worn trailer in the parking lot. Once they got inside, Sam was startled to see that the trailer had been converted into a cramped combination of communal dressing room, wardrobe, and props storage; it was as if someone had taken the backstage area out of a theater and put it on wheels. Cass ordered Sam to stay put, and he meekly complied. As long as she was willing to take charge, he saw no reason to object; it might even save him some of the usual embarrassment that came from his ignorance at the beginning of a Leap.

Cass glanced at a small, digital clock affixed to one of the mirrors and hesitated, then began moving purposefully.

"It's getting so late, I guess you'd probably better put on your street clothes; you'd have to change into them in about an hour anyway." She helped him with the buckles of his "armor", which was useful, since Sam had been wondering how he was going to get out of it; he paid close attention to the process, in case he should be expected to put it on again himself at some point in the future. Once he was down to the padding and undergear, Cass scooped up a pile of clothes, dumped them into his arms, and shooed him behind a screen to change. When Sam emerged, feeling far more at home in jeans and a sweatshirt, his new sister swooped down on him with a first aid kit, to smear disinfectant over the bump on his forehead and tape a square of gauze over it. He got the impression that she was very accustomed to patching up wounded warriors. While she worked, she gave him a thorough lecture on safety first, and the stupidity of playing macho little games like showing off with his sparring partner. Sam yessed and nodded and looked properly contrite; the analytical side of him, noting how quickly the young woman assumed a mothering role, began to favor the possibility of these two having had a past in which they were forced to rely heavily on each other. Orphans, perhaps, or -- unhappy thought -- victims of a cold or abusive upbringing. He hoped he was wrong. Well, Al would tell him . . .

His stomach muscles tensed into a cold knot as memory struck. Al was not likely to be telling him anything, ever again. History had been changed, and drastically; so drastically, in fact, that Al Calavicci was never going to end up on Project Quantum Leap in the first place. For all Sam knew, there might never have been a Project Observer at all. He had a half-memory of another Leap, when Al had vanished briefly and someone else had taken his place, but there was no guarantee now that any friendly hologram would ever pop up to offer advice and assistance again. He remembered a bartender with eyes like pools of infinity, a choice offered . . . and taken. Ridiculously, he felt grief welling up in his chest, though Al was not dead -- was, in fact, far happier than he ever could have been in the reality where Sam had known him.

_It's better this way,_ Sam told himself fiercely, but the grief was still there, and twisted like a knife in his chest. _God, I'm gonna miss him._ Probably, soon, all his memories of Al would fade and vanish, leaving it as if they had never met; with that thought, the grief hit even harder, and Sam's throat closed up like a vise.

"Bjorn?" Cass noticed her brother's attention wandering. "Bjorn." She waved a hand in front of his face. "Yoo-hoo -- Al!"

That was probably the one name in the world that could've gotten Sam's attention at that point. His head jerked up, and he stared at the woman before him in shock. "What?"

Cass was clearly startled. "Jeez, Al, that's the first time I've ever seen you respond to your mundane name faster than to your Society one." She hesitated, and Sam gazed at her blankly, his mind roiling with confused thoughts and conflicting emotions that had nothing to do with the current situation. Fortunately, Cass chose to take the blankness as a deliberate act.

"Don't give me that innocent look! Now, are you going to behave yourself or not?" The sharp-edged authority in her voice was tempered with humor, and, underneath that, genuine affection.

With a gargantuan effort, Sam pulled himself out of his reverie and back to the "present". He mustered a relatively genuine smile and said, "I'll be a good boy from now on; cross my heart." He sketched an X in the air over his breastbone, and Cass chuckled and lightly slapped his arm with the back of her hand  
.   
"It's true -- men never do grow up. Now c'mon, let's go show everyone you're still alive."

From the brief time he spent mingling with the other costumed and armored folk, Sam learned a number of things. First of all, he apparently went by the name of "Sir Bjorn of the Manor", while his sister was known as "Lady Cassandra of the Manor" (or "Cass" for short). Sir Bjorn was evidently well-known and well-liked, given the number of people who came by to ask him how his head was. Judging from the park's greenery, it was sometime in spring, and judging from the clothing and hairstyles of the people not in costume, it was sometime in the late 80s. And finally, he discovered the costumed people were not members of the Society for Creative Anachronism as he'd first thought, but rather belonged to a group called "Ye Goode Olde Days Society", affectionately referred to as "Ye GODS" for short. Apparently, the Society was holding a combination tournament/ fair/celebration for some reason or another, and this afternoon had been devoted to exhibitions of practice sparring; the actual tournament bouts would take place at a date in the near future. A sneaked look at his driver's license confirmed his guess on the decade; the date of issue was August 6th, 1985 and the expiration date was April 24th, 1990. The license also told him that Bjorn's real name (or "mundane" name -- Ye GODS shared that bit of jargon with the SCA) was Albert Kinsen, and assuming all the information was still current, Al Kinsen lived at 2815 West Blaine in Hendricks, California. That would make sense; by squinting down at the design on his sweatshirt, he identified it as the college seal of U. C. Hendricks. Sam had never been to that campus, or not that his swiss-cheese memory recalled, anyway, but he thought vaguely that it was somewhere up in the northern half of the state.

While all of that was potentially useful information, he still had no idea what Cass' real name was, or what the real names of anybody else in the gathering were, for that matter. Nor did he have the faintest idea of where 2815 West Blaine was or how he'd get there later (if, of course, he was in Hendricks, CA to begin with). He definitely missed Al, but refused to let himself dwell on that. Much. In a matter of an hour or so after he'd Leaped in, the gathering began to break up. People began to drift towards the parking lot, and Sam and Cass followed; all the while, Sam was desperately trying to figure out a way to get someone to show him which car was his without having it look suspicious; he could always just stand around until everyone else left and assume the last car on the lot was his by the process of elimination, but that option wasn't especially attractive. He decided to tell Cass he'd forgotten where he'd parked, in hopes her maternal instincts would take over and cause her to lead him to it (no doubt telling him to "pay more attention next time!"). Upon reaching the lot, he was momentarily distracted by the bizarre sight of costumed Society members loading into perfectly ordinary Fords, Toyotas, and Volvos; a few members entered the dressing-room/trailer to change into street clothes, but they were mostly the ones in especially heavy or elaborate gear. Sam shook his head to clear away the image of a Renaissance dandy casually removing a fencing foil from his belt and tossing it into the back seat of a blue Pinto, then opened his mouth to tell Cass that he couldn't quite remember where he'd parked. Fortunately, she spoke first.

"That's a pretty nasty bump you took," she said. "Do you want me to drive?"

Sam squelched his first response (which was to shriek a grateful and relieved "YES!") and calmly replied, "Yeah, that would probably be a good idea."

They stopped off momentarily at the trailer to collect Sam's armor and weaponry, then lugged it halfway across the parking lot to an orange VW bus. As they were loading the fighting gear into the back, Sam caught sight of the words "The Great Pumpkin" stenciled on the side of the bus, and grinned. He liked this brother and sister; he hoped he'd be able to fix whatever had gone wrong in their lives. That thought sobered him again, and more than ever he found himself wishing that a short, gravel-voiced Admiral would step out of nowhere and tell him what was going on.

_Dammit,_ Sam thought, _I can't keep feeling sorry for myself like this! I'll just have to get on the ball and work things out for myself. I should be getting some kind of guidance after all, from . . . whoever._ All he could do on that front was wait and have faith, but he determined to find out as much as he could on his own, starting now.

The drive though town was informative; the business names and the signs declaring "U. C. Hendricks Campus keep right" told him where he was for certain. The streets running roughly north-south were numbered, and the streets running east-west were named after presidents, largely in order of their chronological terms of office. Given an address, he began to feel confident that he could find his way to it. He accurately predicted which street would be Blaine, and the lowering sun told him which side of it would be West. It was, he noticed, quite a nice neighborhood, full of large, old, well-kept houses and impressive trees. He counted numbers, and reached 2815 at exactly the same time Cass pulled into a driveway. Sam had to suppress a whistle of surprise and appreciation. Of all the big, old houses on the street, this one had to be the biggest, oldest, and most regal. His swiss-cheese memory failed him on identifying the style, but he could appreciate fine architecture without knowing the details. The place almost looked like a miniature castle; no wonder he was known as Bjorn "of the Manor".

"Well, home sweet home," Cass sighed. "Tell you what -- you unload the gear and I'll get dinner started, deal?"  
"Deal," Sam agreed, rather surprised to realize that both brother and sister were living in the same house at this point in their lives; however, he realized he should have been expecting something of the sort, since Cass was "of the Manor" as well. It took two trips to carry in all of Bjorn's fighting gear, and on the second trip, Sam noticed a mailbox and newspaper receptacle mounted on a post at the mouth of the driveway. Once the gear was all stored in the living room, he investigated and was rewarded with a copy of the _Hendricks Daily Reporter_ and a stack of mail. He brought the lot back to the house, dumped it down on the table next to the door and began to sort it. All of the mail was addressed to "Occupant", "Mr. Albert Kinsen" and "Ms. Megan Kinsen". So Cass's real name was probably Megan, then; there were no signs that anyone else lived here.

Turning to the paper, Sam learned that it was the Friday of Memorial Day weekend, 1987. On a hunch, he flipped through the sections until he found one labelled "Lifestyles/Weekend"; as with many Friday editions of newspapers, this one contained information on local entertainment and activities scheduled for the weekend. Luck was with him, for he quickly found a brief article on the Ye Goode Olde Days Memorial Weekend Tourney, which was accompanied by a timetable of events. He skimmed through it, trusting his photographic memory to store the information for later use; except for the holes caused by Leaping's swiss-cheese effect, his gift of perfect recall still worked remarkably well. The article didn't tell him much more that he'd already guessed about Ye GODS; though some of the details sounded a bit different from what little he knew of the SCA, the basics were identical. He nodded, and re-folded the paper, just in time to catch a scolding from his sister for leaving fighting gear scattered all over the living room. He meekly agreed to cart it up to his room, calling her "Megan" as a test. She didn't seem to notice, so he assumed that was indeed her name. The brief feeling of triumph at having his rudimentary detective work pay off vanished abruptly when Megan returned to the kitchen and he was left without a clue as to which room was his. This was a very large house; since she'd used the phrase "up to" his room, it had to be upstairs, but that didn't narrow things down too much. He sighed and decided it was time for a little blind faith. With an armful of equipment, he started up the stairs.

One of the things he'd learned quickly during his career as a Leaper was that each body he Leaped into often retained traces of its former owner; these traces could run the gamut from memories to phobias to personality traits, as well as the more physical patterns worn into a body's muscles and reflexes by continual repetition. Very often, if he just relaxed and surrendered conscious control, these little bits of the person he was pretending to be would surface on their own. It was difficult to do, and it had taken him a long time to get even halfway comfortable with the idea -- it was distinctly disconcerting to know that, during any given Leap, he was not entirely Sam Beckett, even though Sam Beckett was more or less in charge. It was one of those things he didn't let himself think too much about, for the sake of sanity.

Hoping to turn this partial melding of individuals to good use, Sam deliberately let his thoughts wander as he walked up the stairs; he noticed the pattern on the carpeting, saw a spiderweb in a corner that should really be swept out, checked the banister for nicks as it flowed past him . . . and when he reached the top of the stairs, his legs obligingly turned him to the right and began walking confidently down the hallway. Unfortunately, Sam's concentration wavered as he recognized his success, and he stopped dead. Cursing himself, he tried to recapture the half-aware state of mind, but it eluded him. He settled for walking slowly down the hall until he felt the tiniest twinge of recognition as he passed in front of a particular door. Like all of the doors, it was solid, heavy wood, richly finished. There were a few nicks and scrapes that bespoke great age and probably declining fortunes, but, like the rest of the house, it was still a decidedly class act.

He fumbled around with the brass doorknob (dropping a shin guard in the process), and the door swung inward to reveal what had to be Al Kinsen's bedroom; it had a lived-in appearance, and the few clothes scattered around were definitely not Megan's. Gratefully, Sam dumped the gear on the floor, for want of a better place to put it at the moment, and went to get the second load. With that safely deposited, he began to look the room over as analytically as possible.

The first thing that caught his eye, of course, was the incredible number of books. The walls were virtually covered with shelves, and it was a large room. That in itself gave Sam another reason to like Al Kinsen. The room sported a bed, pushed off to one side out of the way of the bookshelves, a dresser, an old-fashioned free-standing wardrobe, a door that probably led to a closet, a desk, and two chairs (one overstuffed and one to go with the desk). All of it was, predictably, old-fashioned, rather worn, but of high quality. The far wall had a window that overlooked a large fenced yard; in the fading light, he could make out what seemed to be a few fruit trees, a small vegetable garden, a patch of lawn, several shrubs and flowerbeds, and a puzzling bare area of trampled dirt showing starkly against the darker grass. After a moment, Sam decided that it was probably a practice ground for Bjorn's fighting skills. He pulled the drapes and turned on the green-shaded desk lamp. Scattered over its surface were stacks of papers, many of them obviously essays written for a class; a few of them were sitting to one side, dotted with comments in red pen. An open gradebook lay nearby, and a search of the desk's drawers yielded a U. C. Hendricks class schedule. It seemed that Kinsen -- Dr. Kinsen -- was teaching a summer course in English Composition. Sam hoped he could finish his Leap's mission before the following Monday; he'd taught a few classes in his time, but not in English Comp, and he didn't relish the thought of having to try. He stowed the class schedule back in the drawer and grinned as a thought struck him: _Maybe I'm here to grade Kinsen's midterms for him._ He knew that was astronomically unlikely, of course -- Al would just tell him he was being silly . . . Sam cut the thought short, sat down at the desk, and rubbed his temples, hoping for some kind of a sign.

Distantly, he heard Megan shouting at him that dinner was ready. Well, as signs went, it wasn't the most impressive, but at least it was easy to deal with. He got up out of the chair and headed downstairs.


	3. Chapter Two

_His wrong is your wrong  
And his right is your right,  
In season or out of season . . ._

_ \-- Leslie Fish  
"The Thousandth Man"_

Al Calavicci grumbled to himself about the unreliability of technology in general - and parallel hybrid computers in particular - as he hurried down the corridor to the Imaging Chamber. Ziggy might be the biggest pile of logic chips and biocircuits ever built, but it had still taken "her" until eight o'clock at night to locate her creator. That meant Sam had spent several hours in his latest situation without any kind of backup whatsoever. Al hoped Sam hadn't gotten into any kind of trouble without him there to help. He retrieved his vest from where he'd left it in the room nex to the Imaging Chamber and slipped it on. The vest and matching trousers were a refreshing, eye-catching tangerine orange; worn with a predominantly-orange Hawaiian shirt, white shoes, and a favorite bolo tie, Al thought the outfit made quite a statement. He'd said as much to Gushie, and the computer programmer had replied, "Yeah -- it says `I am not a deer'." Al was still thinking over how to get him back for that one.

Al fired up a cigar, pulled his handlink out of his vest pocket, and stepped through the Imaging Chamber door, to find himself in a cluttered room dominated by rows of bookshelves and a monstrous wooden desk that had once been elegant but was now bordering on the disreputable. A bed and dresser were shoved off in one corner, apparently to make room for more books. Al glanced around and spotted Sam sitting cross-legged on the floor behind the desk, rifling through a stack of printed matter. He would pick up a book, flip though it rapidly, then set it aside; Al had seen it before, often. What few people realized (or believed) was that Sam was actually skimming the books as he flipped through them, getting the gist of the contents and storing the information away in that astounding memory of his. Once he'd gone through all the books present, he'd then sit down and decide which to read first, based on his mental summaries. "Databasing", he called it. It was one of his favorite occupations -- nothing put Sam Beckett in a good mood like being reminded how much new information the Universe held, waiting for him to discover it.

Sure enough, as Al padded closer he could hear Sam humming under his breath, a sure sign that he was in seventh heaven. Al grinned, and carefully tiptoed up behind his friend until he was standing in the center of the desk (which, of course, wasn't there as far as Al was concerned). He leaned over until he was practically speaking in Sam's ear and inquired, "So, read any good books lately?"

Sam jumped a good six inches (rather clumsily, since it's hard to jump from a cross-legged position), and spun around. Instead of giving Al a piece of his mind about holograms who sneak up on people and think it's funny, he was silent for a long moment, then asked in a very weak voice, "Al? What are you doing here?"

Al frowned -- he didn't like the just-seen-a-ghost look on his friend's face, or the faint tremor in the hands that still held the book, white-knuckled. The patch of gauze taped to his forehead wasn't very reassuring, either. Al hoped Sam hadn't gotten his brains scrambled by a knock on the head. "Whaddaya mean, what am I doing here? I'm gonna make sure you don't screw this up, just like always." He kept his tone of voice light, but watched Sam closely.

Sam swallowed. "You shouldn't be here. I changed history."

"What?" Al gave him a sidelong glance. "'Course you did -- that's why you Leaped."

"No, I mean I changed your history . . ." Sam trailed off, and his eyebrows drew together in sudden doubt and confusion.

" . . . Didn't I?" he finished uncertainly, half to himself and half to Al.

Now Al was really worried. Was Sam finally losing it, or had he actually changed something that Al was unable to remember as having been altered? Either way, it was enough to send a chill down a man's spine. "Uh, Sam, exactly how did you change my history?"

"I . . ." Sam clearly struggled with the wording of his answer " . . . changed your marriage," he said, tentatively.

"My marriage? Which one?" So far as Al could tell, none of his memories of his four -- no, five -- marriages were any different than they'd ever been.

Sam wore the expression of a man with a sinking feeling. Almost frantically, he clarified, "Your first marriage! To Beth . . ." He trailed off, almost flinching, as if he'd said something taboo.

Suddenly, Al thought he understood. "How did you change things, Sam?"

"I . . . went back and told Beth you were alive, that you'd be coming home," Sam said, desperate, almost pleading. "It was just after you found me, don't you remember? The bartender came out and offered me a choice . . ."

"Bartender? What bartender?" Al was seriously confused, but he felt a growing certainty that his idea was right.

"You know - the one in the mining town, back in 1953! Well, he wasn't really a bartender - I don't know what he was - but he's the one who's been controlling my Leaping, sort of."

"Sam. Sam! I don't remember any bartender, or any mining town."

"But you were there! You were even wearing your dress uniform!"

"My dress uniform? Why would I be wearing that?"

"I . . . don't know," A flicker of doubt crossed Sam's face, but he forged ahead. "You just were. And there was another Leaper there, your Russian uncle, the one who was a coal miner . . ."

"Russian uncle? Sam, you know I'm Italian on both sides of my family - where would I get a Russian uncle?"

"I . . ." Sam broke off, massaging his temples. "I don't know, but . . ."

Al decided it was time to intervene. "While we were monitoring your last Leap, we picked up some unusual readings. D . . . Gushie thinks they were some kind of REM pattern."

"REM pattern?" Sam echoed, jerking his head up in surprise. "But that would mean I was . . ."

" . . . Dreaming. It would explain a lot, Sam."

"But, you mean I didn't change history? You and Beth aren't still together?" Sam's face was a painful mixture of sorrow and despair.

"No, we're not." Al's voice was as gentle as Sam had ever heard it.

"You should be! Dammit Al, it's not fair . . .!" Sam slammed his fist into the floor, frustrated beyond words.

Al snorted. "Life isn't fair, kiddo. You should know that by now."

"But my Leaping is supposed to be about fixing things, and I've never been able to help you, even with two chances," Sam shot back, and his voice was shaking around the edges.

Al sighed. If his best friend had one weak spot, it was the fact that he cared, helplessly; Sam Beckett might be a mental giant, but he was shockingly defenseless on an emotional level, open to everyone's pain and sorrow, and eternally willing to try to do something about them.

"It wasn't like you didn't have other things to worry about," Al told him, doing his best to sound calm and logical. "You had lives to save, both times."

"But . . ."

"How happy could I be knowing that someone had to die for my marriage to be saved, huh?" Al was deliberately overlooking the fact that, had history been altered, he'd never have known about the events surrounding the change, but he hoped Sam wouldn't pick up on the flaw. "Can you honestly say that my relationship with Beth was worth seeing that cop die . . . or your brother?"

"No!" That had hit home, hard; Al could tell from the horrified expression on Sam's face.

"Well, then, there you are," Al concluded, waving his cigar decisively before taking a puff. "You were right when you said we shouldn't try to change history for selfish reasons."

That was a mistake, he realized, when he heard Sam's bitter chuckle.

"Oh yes," Sam said, his voice dripping sarcasm, "I said that. But it sure didn't stop me from trying to make the past what I wanted it to be, did it? Every time I've come up against temptation, all my high-and-mighty morals have gone straight out the window . . ."

"That's not true, Sam! You've wavered a couple times, but you've always done the right thing." Sam didn't look up, and Al intensified his attack. "For cryin' out loud Sam, if you hadn't wanted to help the people you care about, you wouldn't be human!"

Sam exhaled slowly, and when he spoke, his words were loaded with self-reproach. "There had to have been some way to make things work out right for you those times. If I'd just tried harder, I could've have figured it out, I could've . . ."

"Sam!" During his lifelong career in the military, Al had perfected a tone of voice that could make an enlisted man jump three feet in the air and come down saluting. It had almost the same effect on Sam, who looked up in surprise, completely startled out of his self-recrimination. Al pulled in a deep breath and began to speak with a level intensity he only used in absolute earnestness.

"Even if you'd kept Beth from remarrying, it still wouldn't've been `happily ever after' for us. We would have split up within three years after I got back." Sam opened his mouth with clear intent of interrupting, but Al held up a hand to silence him. "No doubts on that, either. It would have been a dead 100% certainty." He held up his handlink. "I have it on good authority."

This time, Sam did interrupt. "But you loved each other!"

Al snorted. "Sure we did. But we didn't understand each other very well -- it's a wonder we stayed together as long as we did.

"And what's more, I knew it all along. All the scenarios I had Ziggy run during that one Leap were about how to keep Beth from remarrying -- never once did I ask what would happen if she did stay married to me. I kept telling myself that things would work out if I could just keep us together, but I was lying. I was scared, Sam, because 'way deep down, I knew it wouldn't work. I only got the guts to ask Ziggy about it after you Leaped out of Vietnam, but I wasn't surprised when I saw the readouts; I was relieved, even, in a way." He shrugged, and smiled the ironic half-smile he reserved for especially painful moments. "It really wasn't meant to be, Sam."

Sam, however, remained steadfast. "Ziggy's been wrong before, Al."

"Yeah, but she's been right, too. And according to the data, I'd rather not risk it." Sam looked blank. "As things are now, Beth is happily married to that lawyer of hers," -- even in this conversation, Al couldn't hide the edge of jealously in his voice, but he kept going, -- "they have two kids and three grandkids, and everything's just fine for them. But, if Beth had stayed married to me, after we split up things wouldn't have gone nearly as well for her. She'd be alone now. She always hated being alone." Al's eyes were shadowed with memory, and Sam knew he was thinking about those years when Beth had had no one, and there'd been no way for her to know that the man she loved was still alive. "As it is, she's happy, and I wouldn't want to take that away from her."

Sam face indicated he was wavering, but not convinced. _That damn romantic heart of his,_ Al thought. _He seriously believes True Love can conquer all. Poor kid._ It was time for the kicker.

"Not to mention the fact that things wouldn't have turned out so hot for me, either," Al continued easily.   
That made Sam blink. "What do you mean?" he asked.

"Well, if I'd stayed married to Beth for those three extra years, my life would've changed so that I never met you. And you can guess what that would mean."

"You never would have worked on Project Quantum Leap."

"That, and worse."

"Huh?"

"Remember what I was like when you first met me?"

Sam's eyebrows drew together for a second, then pulled apart as his eyes widened and he stared at Al in silent horror. Al nodded, and silently sketched a tipping bottle in the air.

They were silent for a few heartbeats, then Sam looked away and asked, "Why am I here, Al?" His voice still didn't sound quite right, but Al wasn't going to push things; hashing over emotional issues had never been his strong point, and if Sam wasn't willing to talk about it, there'd be no getting anything further out of him. Any scientist who can manage to get a time machine funded and built is bound to have a serious stubborn streak in him.

Al fiddled with the handlink for a moment, and then gave up the pretense. "We're not sure yet."

That actually earned a weary chuckle from Sam. "So what else is new?" he mumbled, rubbing a hand over his face. Al was relieved to hear his friend's voice almost returned to normal. Sam looked up, and if his eyes were still pained, at least he was eas wearing the ghost of a smile. "Okay, let's start with the easy stuff: Who am I?"

"It's 1987, this is Hendricks, California, and your name is Albert -- hey, how about that! -- Albert Kinsen. You're thirty years old and you're an ass . . ." Al trailed off, smacking the handlink, and Sam shot him a sidelong look ". . . isstant professor at U. C. Hendricks, teaching in the English department. You have a sister, Megan, who's twenty-five and working a doctorate in European history. Huh. Academics must run in the family." The hologram paused, then frowned. "Ouch. Speaking of family, you -- I mean, Albert and Megan -- were orphaned when he was eighteen and she was thirteen. The parents died in a car wreck, and the two of you managed to get by on your inheritance, since your family had a lot of money. In fact, this house . . ." Al waved a hand vaguely around the room " . . . was part of the inheritance."

"You mean we own this house?" Sam blinked, and a random wisp of memory surfaced. "I hate to think what the property taxes must be like, especially in California." Suddenly, an idea sparked in the back of his mind. "Are we -- Albert and Megan, I mean -- in some kind of financial trouble? Is that why I'm here?"

"No, that's not it. In two years, the house gets designated a national historic landmark, and that helps with the property taxes; plus you both manage to make enough money to get by okay, what with your investments and all . . . Let's see, the two of you are also founding members of the `Ye Goode Olde Days Society', whatever that is."

"It's like the SCA," Sam told him absently.

"What's the SCA?" Al asked, thoroughly confused.

"You know, the Society for Creative Anachronism." That clearly didn't ring any bells for the other man. "The historical recreation society? The ones who go around staging medieval feasts and swordfighting tournaments and stuff?"

Understanding dawned. "Oh, you mean those loonies who go around beating up on each other with fake swords in parks? Those guys?"

"There's more to it than that, Al," Sam said, somewhat dryly. "I picked up a fair amount about the SCA, what with all the time I spent on college campuses. I even thought about joining once or twice, but I never had the time."

Al snorted. "No kidding you never had time, with seven degrees in the works. Anyway, Ziggy says that the Hendricks chapter of the SCA got into a big fight with the main organization back in 1982, and ended up seceding, or whatever it's called. They formed their own `kingdom' and have been holding separate tournaments and other get-togethers ever since. They also seem to have made up their own set of by-laws."

"Ziggy knows all that? How? This isn't exactly mainstream information."

"Yeah, well, it turns out he student newspaper made a big deal out of it -- printed all kinds of articles about what was going on. The university transferred all the back issues onto microfilm back in '91, then they put all their microfilm onto the 'Net in '97, so . . ."

"So Ziggy can access it." Sam nodded appreciatively. "Well, that's one stroke of luck, anyway. Now, if you can just figure out why I'm here . . ."

At that moment, the handlink chirped.

"Ask and ye shall receive," Al said, somewhat taken aback. "Ziggy says she figures there's an 89% chance you're here to see that your sister . . ."

"Albert's sister."

". . . Yeah, Albert's sister . . . gets together with a guy named Terrence Mills." Al blinked. "`Terrence'??"

"Great. Who the heck's Terrence Mills?" Intuition struck as soon as the words were out of his mouth; he remembered Megan's tendency to distance herself from strong emotion by turning it into anger. The person he'd seen her get angriest at, and therefore she'd likely feel the strongest emotion for was . . .

"Al, in those articles about the Society, does the name `Nigel of Narrowford' ever come up?"

"Narrowford? All one word? Hmm. . . " Al entered the name, and waited a moment for the data to come up. He raised his eyebrows and whistled. "Sam, you must by psychic. A guy calling himself `Nigel of Narrowford' earned something of a reputation for himself around campus by getting into all kinds of loud public arguments with other SCA members. Once he and another guy started a shouting match while they were in full combat getup, and they ended up taking a few serious whacks at each other before some bystanders pulled them apart. And, according to the articles, `Nigel's' real name is . . ."

"Terrence Mills, right?"

Al looked annoyed at having the punchline stolen from him, but nodded agreement. "So you know him?"

"In a way. He practically cracked my skull this morning."

"He what?!"

Sam raised a hand to forestall Al's outrage. "Not intentionally. It was an accident during a combat demonstration in the park."

"Oh, so that's what that bandage is about." Al glanced around, and caught sight of the untidy pile of homemade armor still lying on the floor; Sam hadn't quite gotten around to putting it away. "You mean you were wearing that stuff in public? And I missed it? I gotta get Ziggy to start locating you faster."

Sam glared at his friend, but chose to ignore the comment and change the subject. "Actually, I think Megan already likes Terrence, but doesn't want to admit it. That should make this Leap a little easier. I hope."

Al sighed. "Yeah, me too." He wandered over to the pile of fighting gear and inspected it; duct tape made up at least half of its total surface area. "You know, with the right tie, this might not be half bad . . ."

"Al."

"Seriously, there's this guy in Paris who's putting out a new fashion line that looks just like this . . ."

"Al, enough already!"

"You're no fun," Al told him petulantly.

"And you're too much fun for your own good," Sam retorted easily, scooping up a handful of armor. Maybe if he got the stuff out of sight that would help. Bent over, he didn't notice Al's surprised blink. That particular exchange had been a running joke between them during the early days of the Project, but this was the first time  
Al had known Sam to recall it in all his years of Leaping.

For lack of any better objective, Sam took the armor over to the wardrobe (which he hadn't yet investigated, being sidetracked by the books) and swung to door open. The inside of the door was studded with various hooks, most empty but a few sporting bits and pieces of similar gear, most badly worn or obviously in need of repair.

"Bingo," Sam said with satisfaction, and began hanging things up. He didn't know if there was any intended order, so he went at random.

He was rooting around deeper inside the wardrobe in search of a place to stow the wooden shield when he came across something that made him whistle with surprise.

Al, predictably, was right there in a second. "What? What is it?"

Sam pulled out what resembled at first glance a folded grey blanket, but then he shook it out with a sharp metallic jingle and it resolved itself into a suit of chainmail.

"I think we've just hit the Society equivalent of the good silver," Sam said, bemused. He inspected the mesh closely and whistled again. "Welded links, too! This is quality stuff." The mail was long enough to reach Sam's -- or, rather, Al Kinsen's -- knees, and Kinsen was not a small man. "I wonder how much this cost?" Al could hear a particular note creeping into Sam's voice, the one that meant he was starting to get very interested in something. Sam folded the chainmail again and set it back, then leaned deeper into the wardrobe.

"There's something else -- " he broke off abruptly, and came out with a long, cloth-wrapped bundle. Unwrapping it, he revealed a sheathed broadsword, and at the sight of it he broke into a grin. By the sparkle in his eyes, Al knew Sam was well and truly hooked; he'd seen Sam wear that look on any number of occasions, not the least of which had been when he'd first sketched out his theory of time travel for a rather skeptical Admiral.

The sword was tied into the sheath by peace-strings, and Sam wasted no time in loosening the knots. He held the sword up horizontally at arm's length, and slid a handsbreadth of mirror-polished steel free. He paused reverently, then swept the blade out of its sheath. Even Al had to admit it was an impressive piece of workmanship, designed with an elegant simplicity. Sam hefted it for a moment, then adjusted his grip. "This is fantastic, Al! It feels like it was made for me . . . well, for Albert, anyway." Then he managed to startle Al considerably by executing a swift, complex movement. "Incredible -- I must have gotten some of Albert's reflexes when I Leaped in; I don't remember anything like this from any of the other Leaps. I know I did a little foil fencing in college, but I never tried broadswords." The confidence in his voice was more than a little unusual; Al couldn't quite remember when Sam had sounded so certain about his own past before -- there'd been Leaps where Sam hadn't had the slightest clue about what he had or hadn't studied.

Sam sheathed the sword with a single fluid movement and retied the peace-strings. "Maybe this Leap won't be entirely bad," he commented, still with that sparkle in his eyes. Then he sighed, and reluctantly tucked the sword back into the wardrobe.

"Getting back to business, what took you so long to find me?" he asked.

"We're not sure. Ziggy wouldn't tell us. I think her ego's getting bigger by the second -- she doesn't even like to admit she's wrong. I still can't figure out why you designed her that way . . ."

"If she didn't have an ego," Sam replied absently, "she'd be no better than your garden-variety Cray supercomputer." (Al considered mentioning that there was no such thing as a "garden-variety" Cray, but Sam continued without a break.) "With an ego comes the incentive to continually do better, to try innovative new things, to evolve after a fashion." He rubbed the back of his neck and grimaced. "Unfortunately, it also makes for a pretty annoying personality."

"Amen." Al glanced at his watch. "Do you think you'll need me any more tonight?"

"No, it's a little late for matchmaking; I think I'd better keep trying to get a solid grip on where our friend Albert is coming from -the less out of character I seem, the easier this should be."

"Good; Tina just got back from leave today, and she said she'd gone shopping and picked up a few very interesting bits of intimate apparel that she just couldn't wait to show me . . ."

Sam shook his head with mock resignation. "You're incorrigible. Go on -- get out of here." He waved his hands in a shooing motion while Al summoned the Imaging Chamber Door and stepped back into the future. The glowing oblong of the Door slid shut behind him, and Sam's amused half-smile persisted for a few seconds, then faded. He sat down in the desk chair and rubbed his hands over his face, then leaned back to study the ceiling.

"Oh, Al," he whispered after a few moments. "I'm so sorry."


	4. Chapter Three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really wanted Donna to get more character development. So here it is.

_Although far distance may be assistance  
From my mind his love to remove,  
Yet my heart is with him altogether  
Though I live not where I love._

_ \-- "I Live Not Where I Love"  
(Trad., after Prior and Hart)_

At about midnight, Donna leaned back in her chair and knew she could either take a break or go crazy. With each new Leap Sam made, she hoped that a pattern to his travelling would become apparent. It had proven futile in the past; no matter how one analyzed the welter of times and people and places, randomness seemed to be the key factor. The only constant was a tendency for Sam to Leap to a location within North America, but there had been exceptions, and the trend told her nothing besides the fact that Sam's next Leap would probably land him somewhere on a particular continent.

The lack of any apparent pattern had been torturing Donna since the beginning, moreso because she knew that very often a data set that appears random in every way may, in fact, need only the proper system of analysis to reveal its underlying logic. She had tried every mathematical and statistical analysis she and Ziggy could think of, and the two of them had even invented a few new ones along the way -- to no avail.

_If only Sam were here,_ she thought, smiling despite herself at the irony of it. Her husband was a man of many talents, but the one thing that made him into the best quantum physicist of his day was his gift for understanding patterns. He could pull order (or what passed for order in the quantum universe, at any rate) from chaos with seemingly effortless ease because to him it was all intuitive. He could feel forces and probabilities without having to think about them, and so could make stunning leaps of logic in seconds. The hardest part of it all, he often joked, was sitting down and actually working out the math to prove what he already knew.

That same gift for comprehending three- (or four-, or ten-) dimensional patterns revealed itself again and again throughout Sam's broad range of interests. Music, languages, martial arts, physics -- all of them involved the patterning of space, time, and thought, and all of them came to him with almost ridiculous ease. It was something that Donna was almost certain he didn't realize about himself; he was prone to remark that he liked having diverse hobbies, never seeing (in a rare instance of pattern-blindness) the connecting similarities between them.

Donna herself, on the other hand, was a perfectly good (some would say excellent) physicist, but she lacked any such gift for intuitive understanding; Ziggy, although able to process information at mind-boggling speeds, was not especially creative in any sense of the word. "She" was modeled on the human brain, had a human (or, more accurately, superhuman ego), and was thousands of times more imaginative than any computer in existence, but that still didn't bring "her" anywhere close to a true human being in terms of creativity and intuition. Unfortunately, Ziggy and Donna were the only individuals on the Project who had any real hope of figuring out how to get Sam back. In darker moments, Donna was inclined to doubt that the odds were any better than astronomical. The problem required the mind of a genius to solve in any reasonable length of time, and the only genius' mind involved in the matter was rattling around the time-space continuum like a marble in a roulette wheel. Catch-22.

"I'm going to take a break," Donna told Ziggy.

"As you wish, Dr. Elise," the computer replied, managing to convey a certain smugness in her superiority over humans, who needed to take breaks. Donna was so tired she hardly even noticed the implied slur, and by now she'd had long enough to grow accustomed to Ziggy's personality that it wouldn't have bothered her much if she had.

On an impulse, she decided to go out and look at the stars.

Wrapped warmly in her favorite shawl, a gift from her mother-in-law, she threaded though the underground tunnels of the Project installation, was allowed to pass through the outer doors by both the human guard, who recognized her, and the security system, which recognized the ID implant surgically inserted behind her right collarbone, and finally emerged into the desert night.

Donna had been born and raised a city girl, and it never failed to amaze her how many stars there were. She'd had no idea what the night sky could be like . . . until Project Star Bright.

***

She'd just turned thirty, and Project Star Bright was halfway completed; most estimates gave it about eighteen months to two years till its finish. It was a normal Tuesday afternoon, which meant she'd been working with some of the laser equipment, doing routine performance checks. She sat in a small control room with a layer of shielding glass between herself and the lasers in the adjacent room, running down a computerized checklist. She heard the door open behind her, but didn't think much of it; people were in and out of the control room fairly regularly. Nor was she particularly surprised when she sensed the newcomer glancing over her shoulder at the readouts, since it was natural enough for a Project worker to be interested in the lasers' performance.

The person (a man, from the voice) cleared his throat politely, and asked, "Should number four be operating at that wavelength?"

The fact that the voice wasn't one she recognized gave Donna a mild surprise, but she was watching numbers scroll across a screen, and so didn't glance up when she answered.

"Only for calibration. We lower it forty Angstroms when the system is in use."

The man made an "I see" noise in the back of his throat, then ventured another question.

"What's the efficiency rating on the whole array?"

"About 93 percent."

"Really! And how do you synchronize the pulses . . .?"

The question-and-answer session continued until the performance checks were over, and Donna was rather impressed. The man obviously had a good foundation in laser work, though it clearly wasn't his major field (nor was it hers, though she was considered qualified to do maintenance runs). She logged off the system, and turned to look at the stranger for the first time. He was still gazing through the window at the lasers, and for a split second, she saw him as a nameless, somewhat ordinary-looking individual, roughly her age, nothing special. Then she recognized him and caught her breath in spite of herself. He turned and smiled, a very easy, genuine smile.

"Sorry about hanging over your shoulder like that, but this really is some impressive equipment." With the attitude of someone remembering his manners, he extended a hand. "Hi - my name is Sam Beckett."

The introduction was completely unnecessary; after all, he'd just been on the cover of Time a few months ago, with an accompanying article that referred to him as "the next Einstein". For once, Donna had agreed with the judgment of the popular press. She'd read some of Dr. Beckett's papers and thought they were nothing less than brilliant.

Donna clasped his hand, and smiled back. "Donna Elise," she told him. She was secretly surprised at how . . . natural he seemed. Most Boy Geniuses tended to have egos to match their reputations, but she didn't get any such vibes from this man.

Upon hearing her name, he blinked then smiled more broadly, with a hint of convincing delight. "How about that -- I just finished reading your article in _The Journal of Particle Physics_ during the flight out here! You had some beautiful logic in that . . ."

"Thank you. That's quite a compliment, especially given its source."

"Don't be too impressed," he said with a sheepish smile, shrugging. "Reputations are notoriously deceptive."

"Sometimes," Donna agreed kindly, and he looked pleased but embarrassed. Interesting. An out-of-control ego rarely suffered two compliments in a row without making an appearance. She began to think that maybe working with a world-renowned genius might not be as difficult as she'd expected.

Beckett still had an uncomfortable expression, so Donna decided to rescue him.

"Look, I've got a break coming up for the next fifteen minutes or so. Would you like to join me in the lounge for a cup of coffee? I can show you part of the complex on the way there."

"Sounds great!" Again, the accompanying smile seemed entirely genuine.

The trip to the staff lounge revealed that Beckett had done his homework -- he had a good idea of the layout of the complex already. "I spent some time looking over the floor plans before I got here," he explained when she commented on his knowledge.

"Speaking of which," Donna said, reaching the lounge and ushering him in, "we weren't expecting you for another three days."

"I know. But I wasn't doing anything especially important, and I was dying to see the setup, so . . ." he shrugged. "At least being a brand name has some advantages, like letting me bend schedules a little."

"A `brand name'?"

"You know -- one of those names people like to have on their projects to add prestige, even if you don't contribute a whole lot. This is a case in point, actually; I'm joining up fairly late in the game, but they'll still be able to say I was involved." He grinned wryly and sketched out a large, imaginary billboard. "`The new and improved Project Star Bright -- now containing Dr. Sam Beckett!'"

Donna, spooning instant coffee into a pair of styrofoam cups, chuckled. No, this might not be so difficult after all. She added water from the pot the hot plate, and handed Beckett his coffee. "Cream or sugar?"

"Black, thanks."

"It must be annoying, being a brand name," Donna remarked as they sat down at one of the small, flimsy tables.

"Sometimes. But, as I said, there are a few perks. You're allowed a bit of acceptably eccentric behavior."

"Such as?" Donna raised her eyebrows at him over the rim of her cup.

"Well, for example, right now I'm pretty sure I should be getting the Grand Tour from the Project director, but I thought I'd take a look round on my own. I figured it would be more interesting that way." He raised his cup in salute and smiled, the corners of his eyes crinkling slightly. "If nothing else, the company is pleasant."

There was something in his smile, or his voice, that struck Donna in an unexpected way; to her horror, she felt her face growing warm, and she spent a few seconds being very interested in her coffee. The unbidden reaction made her more than a little uneasy: as a matter of course, Donna Elise did not blush, certainly not at a mild, polite compliment from someone she'd only just met.

Once she'd gotten herself under control, she glanced back up at Beckett, hoping he hadn't noticed anything. His expression was unchanged on the surface, but she thought she saw a hint, just the faintest gleam, of something way back in his eyes . . .

_Get a grip on yourself, woman,_ she told herself severely. _You're not a teenager!_

Beckett started to say something, but broke off when another person entered the lounge. Donna turned her head slightly to see who it was, and recognized Admiral Calavicci, the head of Delta Section. She rarely had any contact with the man, since she herself was assigned to Beta Section along with the rest of the quantum physicists, but rumors travel fast in closed installations. He wasn't visibly weaving, but she felt a certain trepidation all the same; the word around was that he'd been hitting the bottle on his off-duty hours, with increasing frequency. Donna turned back to Dr. Beckett, but before either one of them could speak, a loud wham! from across the room made them both jump and look.

Admiral Calavicci aimed a second vicious kick at the vending machine that stood against the wall, then caught sight of a ball-peen hammer someone had carelessly left on one of the tables. He scooped it up and was drawing back for a swing when Beckett leapt out of his chair and caught the other man's wrist.

"Hey! Whoa! There's no need to get that drastic," Beckett said, deftly taking possession of the hammer. "What's the problem?"

Calavicci turned to glare at him with smoldering eyes, and took a moment before he replied, "Goddamn machine ate my money." The words were sullen and slightly slurred, and Donna knew the rumors were definitely true. Beckett, however, gave no sign that he realized the man was under the influence, though he could hardly have failed to notice.

"Hmmm . . . sometimes, with this make of machine, all you need to do is give it a little tap right here --" Beckett did so, and a quarter clattered into the coin return slot. He scooped it up and offered it to the Admiral with a friendly smile. Calavicci gave him a narrow-eyed look as if trying to figure out whether or not he was being insulted, then grabbed his quarter, turned, and stalked out of the room. As he went, he muttered something under his breath that sounded (to Donna, at least) like, "Goddamn smartass kid . . ." The entrance to the lounge had no door, but if it had, he no doubt would've slammed it on his way out.

The little scene left Donna wondering frantically what to say; this was hardly the impression of the Project that she would have chosen to give a distinguished new colleague on his first day there. As it turned out, she had a moment to organize her thoughts; Beckett stood silently staring after the Admiral with a thin, vertical frown line drawn between his eyebrows. He walked back to the table with a distracted air, and sat down without seeming to really see either the furniture or Donna. Absently, he set the hammer down next to his coffee, then met Donna's eyes with an earnest expression.

"What's the story there?" he asked her calmly, and Donna had the oddest feeling that Beckett had shifted into some different mode, like a doctor confronted with a sudden emergency and inquiring after a patient's symptoms.

She met his level gaze and told him the rumors he'd heard, concisely and honestly; Beckett's air of directness was contagious.

"That was Admiral Calavicci, the head of Delta section. This is all gossip, but the word around is that his marriage is going through a rough time. Apparently he and his wife were separated before he came to work on Star Bright, but things have recently gotten a lot worse between them." She took a sip of coffee, then continued. "At about the same time that rumor started making the rounds, people from Delta hinted that he'd begun drinking heavily. So far he hasn't gone on duty while obviously plastered, but they're are saying it's only a matter of time . . . A lot of his people are very loyal, and they've been covering for him -- I even think some of the higher-ups have been turning a blind eye, but not for much longer." Donna fiddled with her coffee cup. "I don't know him personally, but I hear he's good at what he does. It's a shame."

Beckett sighed and swirled the last of his coffee around in the cup before draining it in one swig. "It always is."

Donna had nothing to add to that, so she kept silent. Just at the point when the silence had seemed to run its course and she was about to speak, yet another person entered the lounge; this time it was Dr. Rejan, the Project Director. He had a harried look about him that dissolved instantly when he caught sight of Dr. Beckett. Donna covered a smile by sipping the last of her coffee; Rejan was rather high-strung at the best of times, and she could vividly imagine his reaction to "losing" one of the world's foremost physicists.

"There you are!" he said, with a relieved heartiness. "We've been looking all over for you, Dr. Beckett. I'm Dr. Rejan, the Director here at Star Bright." He extended a hand, and Beckett rose to clasp it. "Welcome aboard!" Rejan told him.

"Thank you," Beckett said, with another one of his disarming smiles, "It's an honor. I hope I didn't cause any trouble wandering off like that, but I wanted to see the installation and Dr. Elise was kind enough to show me around . . ."

"Oh, no, no trouble at all," Rejan replied cheerfully, and Donna had to suppress another smile. Knowing Rejan, he'd probably called out the Marines when Beckett went missing -- and literally at that, since there was a fairly large military presence on Star Bright.

"Now, why don't I introduce you to the head of Beta Section?" Rejan began, moving to draw Beckett out of the room. Beckett nodded, but resisted long enough to nod at Donna and say, "Thank you for the coffee, Dr. Elise. Maybe we can do this again sometime . . .?"

Donna nodded back. "I'd love to, schedules permitting."

Dr. Rejan clearly thought that was enough, because he clamped his arm firmly around Beckett's shoulders (_To make sure he doesn't get away again,_ Donna thought, and bit her lip to keep the laughter in), steering him out the door. "Dr. Novak is very interested in some of your theories concerning local field distortions . . ." Rejan began, and Beckett had just enough time to slip her a friendly wave before he was swept away. Donna could hear Rejan's voice echoing down the corridor, interspersed with Beckett's occasional comments. Glancing at her watch, she could see her break was almost up; she tidily dumped the styrofoam cups in the trash basket and headed out the door herself, thinking, _No, this might not be bad at all._

***

It was almost two weeks after that first meeting before she got to see Beckett again. In that time, she heard he'd completely retooled half the computer systems, figured out a way to up the efficiency of the laser array by another three percent, and gotten everyone on the Project, from the Director down to the techs, to call him "Sam". Another, quieter bit of news passed around was that he seemed to be spending a lot of time accidentally-on-purpose tagging after Admiral Calavicci on his off hours, and that Calavicci was starting to be sober for unprecedented lengths of time. That last information was both surprising and unsurprising to Donna; it was surprising that Beckett was willing to take an interest in the well-being of someone he hardly knew, in contrast to the other Project members' tendency to politely ignore an unpleasant situation in the ostrich-like hope that it would go away. On the other hand, she remembered the considering, physician-like response he'd had upon meeting the Admiral, and the way he'd been willing to forcefully interpose to prevent the murder of a vending machine. Taking that into consideration, she was not surprised in the least.

Even though she and Beckett worked in the same Section, their work assignments -- and therefore their schedules -- were quite different. They ran into each other at Beta Section staff meetings, but that was hardly a situation for casual socializing. Occasionally, however, they found themselves sharing a break in the lounge, or a meal in the cafeteria. When that happened, the two of them usually ended up deep in conversation. Both of them had a wide range of interests, some of which they shared, and their discussions flowed easily over a vast array of eclectic subjects. Over the course of a few months, Donna discovered that their minds worked in very much the same way, a fact that fascinated her, given their very different approaches to quantum physics: he was given to sudden bursts of all-encompassing inspiration, while she herself tended more towards a steady, careful evolution of ideas. Donna also discovered that Beckett -- Sam -- had a keen sense of humor, an inexhaustible enthusiasm for learning and discovery, and a surprisingly gentle, easygoing nature that somehow managed to coexist with driving ambition. Altogether, he was an interesting, even contradictory individual, and Donna began to look forward to their meetings. Though she was unaware of it, many of the other Project members looked forward to them as well, delighted and a little amazed at the way the normally calm, reserved Dr. Elise would magically transform into a laughing, talkative extrovert in the presence of Dr. Beckett. More than a few eyebrows were raised, and more than a few elbows nudged various sets of ribs.

One night, the two of them ended up alone together in the staff lounge at the end of their respective days' work. Both of them were tired, and glad to simply sit and share a companionable cup of tea. Somewhere along the way, the lazy drift of the conversation touched upon astronomy, and from there shifted to stargazing. At that point, Donna admitted to a near-total ignorance of the constellations, which obviously startled Sam.

"You don't know your stars?" he asked. "For a scientist working on a project named 'Star Bright', that's almost heresy!"

"I'm a quantum physicist, not an astrophysicist," she pointed out in her own defense. "Besides, I grew up in the city. I could never see any stars in the first place, with all those lights around."

He nodded thoughtfully, sipping his tea -- then stopped in mid-motion, clearly struck by an idea. He lowered his cup, and his eyes had that bright, enthusiastic sparkle to them.

"How would you like to take a crash course in naked-eye astronomy?" he asked, with the beginnings of a smile. Donna took his meaning instantly, thanks to that odd tendency for their mental processes to run in parallel.  
"What, you mean now?" she asked, frowning.

He tapped the face of his watch, and his smile was growing by the second. "The weather was clear this afternoon, and now's a perfect time." He raised an eyebrow conspiratorially. "And," he continued, his voice dropping to a theatrical whisper, "I know how to get us onto the roof of the complex." Donna hesitated, thinking how early she had to be up the next day, but in the end that charming, delighted enthusiasm of Sam's won her over.

They threaded their way through the labyrinthine corridors of the complex, and Donna couldn't help but feel a certain mischievous glee; there wasn't really anything overly illicit about two fully-grown scientists going out on the complex roof in the middle of the night, but it still felt like they were a couple of kids sneaking out of the house to go to a midnight movie. Sam led her to an obscure little door she hadn't even known was there, and fished the key for it out of out of his pocket. "It opens with the general public-area key," he whispered to her.   
"Why are you whispering?" she whispered back.

He paused, nonplussed. "Because it feels right?" he ventured. The off-stride expression on his face was so clear and genuine, Donna began snickering, helplessly. That touched him off, and for a minute they leaned helplessly against opposite sides of the door frame, trying to muffle their laughter. Once they'd recovered, Sam took a deep breath and gestured up the stairway that led into darkness. "Okay. Now. The stars."

"The stars," Donna agreed solemnly.

The stairway ended in another door; as Sam opened it, Donna whispered, "Won't this set off an alarm or something?"

"No, this roof's pretty inaccessible; I guess they figured there wasn't much of a security risk in leaving it unguarded."

"I'd almost think you'd done this before."

"You'd almost be perfectly right," he replied cheerfully.

Beyond the door was a stretch of gravel-topped roof, about thirty feet square, surrounded on three sides by the walls of higher levels of the complex, rather like an oversized balcony. Donna's eyes had had a chance to adjust to darkness in the stairwell, and she looked up to find a sky that took her breath away. It was midsummer, and the Star Bright complex was located far out in the wilds of South Dakota; the complex building itself sported few outdoor lights that were regularly lit, and there was no moon to mask the glory of the night sky.  
"I never knew there were so many stars!" she whispered reverently.

"It's something, isn't it? It was like this all the time when I was growing up back in Indiana," Sam said, with evident affection. "I even had a telescope . . ." He trailed off into a reminiscent sigh, and together they scrunched out onto the gravel.

Donna searched the heavens, and then pointed. "There. That's the Big Dipper. I can recognize that, and Orion, and that's it."

"Well, we won't see Orion tonight -- it's a winter constellation. But the big Dipper's a good start. You can use it to find a lot of other things." His voice had altered slightly, and she noticed the change with amusement. She'd encountered that same tone of voice fairly often in their past conversations; it indicated that Sam was well and thoroughly immersed in his subject, and in that state he shed any trace of self-consciousness or awkwardness, his entire awareness focused the topic at hand. Without realizing it, when he reached that state of mind he could be a riveting, inspiring, persuasive speaker. It had no doubt served him very well in his many thesis examinations and scientific presentations.

On that first night, he showed her the basic circumpolar constellations. More than a decade later, Donna traced out the shapes that had become deeply familiar over the years, remembering what it had been like to see them for the first time: the Little Dipper, with the pole star at the tip of its handle (then, as now, the sky had been clear enough for even the faintest stars in the bowl to be visible); Casseopia the Queen and her far dimmer companion, Cepheus the King; and long twisting Draco, curving around and between the Dippers. In the Big Dipper itself, she picked out tiny Alcor, smallest half of the double star marking the bend in the handle, and then followed the line of the handle's curvature off to her left, where it pointed straight towards Arcturus, one of the brightest stars in the summer sky, warm and clear and butter-gold.

Afterwards, Sam had walked her back to the section of the complex devoted to living space. Donna knew more than a few men who might have tried to leverage a brief lesson in astronomy into something more intimate, but Sam simply said goodnight at the corner where one of the corridors branched, and walked down the hallway to his room. Donna took the other branch to her own quarters. She closed the door behind herself and leaned back against it for a moment.

"So help me, Elise," she said aloud, "I think you've just found one of the last true gentlemen in the world."

***

There had been many other impromptu stargazing sessions over the length of Project Star Bright; after the fourth one, Donna managed to dig up a star chart and spent a rather goodly chunk of time going over it. In the process, she was forced to admit to herself that she was hoping to impress Sam . . . and that told her a great deal about her feelings for him. The next time they went stargazing, she was the one who pointed out the Great Square of Pegasus to him; when they parted afterwards, it was still to a friendly "goodnight" and nothing more. At the close of the session after that, she'd remarked that something a little more cordial more would be welcome, and kissed him; after a startled moment, he had kissed her back, passionately. From that second on, there'd been no doubts left for either of them.

***

The memories were clear and painfully bittersweet, and for once Donna let herself indulge in them while her heart contracted into a tight knot of love and loss. All the while, she traced out the patterns of the stars, old familiar lights and configurations, whispering their names to the desert night. At some point, exhaustion overtook her, and she began to nod off, her thoughts blurring and dulling, faint traces of dreams beginning to drift at the edge of her consciousness. Her mind whirled with fragments of the data she'd pored over that evening, muddled around and confused with memories, bizarre dream images, and the shapes of constellations. Detached, her conscious mind realized that she'd probably better go back inside and go to bed, but her body was heavy and unresponsive, and the kaleidoscopic half-dreams tugged insistently at her. She drifted for long timeless moments, not quite surrendering to sleep Without warning an image coalesced: distorted and blurry, overlapped with other bits of mental white noise, but unmistakable. Donna jerked awake, her heart racing from a surge of adrenalin. While her skin prickled into goosebumps, her abruptly-alert mind clung to that dream image, smoothed it, turned it this way and that, tried not to hope too much . . . and failed.

It was not in her nature to shout "Eureka!"; instead, she simply slid off the boulder she'd been seated on and made a dash for the door and her computer terminal.


	5. Chapter Four

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had fun working out all this rationale, as I recall.

_Time will sing its song of changes,  
Images come crystal clear . . ._

_ \-- Golden Bough  
"The Night Wind"_

The next morning, a hastily-assembled group gathered around the Imaging Tank deep in the tunnel complex of Project Quantum Leap. The Tank consisted of six flat panes of transparent polymer ten feet on a side, bolted together to form a cube; in fact, Project workers tended to refer to the structure as the Imaging Cube, or even just the Cube. Strung around the Cube were various cables and projectors, and a few devices were embedded in the polymer walls; the Cube was built as a prototype for a holographic system with which to view the future. The approach turned out to be a dead end, scrapped when Sam had come up with a workable form of neurally-generated virtual reality that was far more sophisticated and flexible than a purely mechanical holographic system. Still, the Cube was a useful device in its own right, and Sam had left it assembled and operational even after the Imaging Chamber was completed.

Gazing into the depths of the Cube (and occasionally yawning, since it was still early) were Donna, Al, Gushie, and Dr. Tina Martinez-O'Farrell; Tina was the Project's computer hardware expert, and though she might have the face and body of a California bimbo, and might have fat, rounded handwriting with little hearts dotting all the i's, she had a mind like a steel trap and a Ph.D. earned _summa cum laude_. She was also Al's main squeeze, right from the beginning of Quantum Leap. Donna remembered how, after Sam had introduced the two of them, he'd gone into his office and laughed for ten minutes straight. "Did you see that?" he'd gasped to Donna, wiping tears from his eyes. "That wasn't just chemistry, that was a free-radical chain reaction!"

The memory brought a smile to Donna's face even through her exhaustion, the effect compounded by the sight of Tina snoozing on her feet and using Al's shoulder as a headrest; Al had taken the opportunity to slip his arm around her and clearly didn't mind being treated like furniture one iota.

Donna rapped her pen against the face of the Cube, and Tina jumped to attention. With everyone's eyes focused on her, Donna drew a breath in preparation to speaking, and noticed her hands were trembling. She pressed them tightly together and began.

"As you know, we've spent the last five years trying to understand the forces underlying the Leap Effect. To do this, we were essentially looking at a linear model, which is superficially indicated by string theory. We attempted to find patterns to Sam's Leaps using everything from chaos theory and fractal geometry to multidimensional coordinate plotting. We went even further afield in search of a mechanism. The problem was, we were using the wrong set of assumptions." She had their complete attention now. She drew in another deep breath and did her best to ignore the weakness in her knees. A night spent on intense mental work without sleep always hit her in the knees first.

"First of all, the deepest levels of string theory imply that time is in fact coterminous rather than linear, meaning that every instant in time touches every other instant in time; although a brief segment of time - such as a human lifetime - may appear to be a linear

`string' crumpled up on itself, and can be approximated by equations that treat it as a linear structure, it is still part of a greater continuum. Therefore, we have to expand our field of focus; we have to understand what the system is doing in order to understand the behavior of a given part. Rather like needing to understand the outline of an ecosystem in order to understand the role and behavior of a given organism," she added, for the benefit of her audience, none of whom were overly familiar with the concepts she was describing. As it was, she was giving the barest bones possible, in the simplest language. "We also must take into account the effects that the greater whole may exert on its constituent elements. As it turns out, that aspect provides the key to getting Sam back." She could see the others hover on the brink of releasing a torrent of questions once her last sentence sank in, but they were all trained professionals and they kept silent to allow her to continue.

"Ziggy, begin simulation `Leap One'," she said, and the Cube lit up with a computer-generated image. It was a flat two-dimensional gridwork indicating a plane, apparently stretching off into infinity despite the limitations of the cube's size. "As you know, the presence of a physical object will cause the fabric of space to warp around it." A white sphere appeared on the grid, and immediately sank down into it, creating a dimple. "In a similar way, distortions can be caused in the fabric of Time; in this case, however, the distorting agent is not a physical object but a particularly important set of probabilities; the greater the potential effect of a situation throughout the fabric of time, the greater the `tension' generated around that moment, and the greater the distortion of Time." The white ball vanished, and the surface of the plane buckled into a rippled pattern. "Because there's a given set of probabilities for every instant in time, we're dealing with an uneven playing field to begin with. However, some moments have the potential to cause greater effects than others. For example, somewhere this instant, somebody is probably deciding what to have for breakfast; chances are, the outcome of that decision will not have a significant impact on the rest of the continuum: whether John Q. Public has toast or oatmeal this morning is unlikely to effect world politics. Correspondingly, that moment will cause minimal distortions." The focus in the Cube zoomed in on a small, insignificant dimple in the grid plane. "However, if someone is considering whether or not to assassinate the President, the decision made can have major repercussions." The focus in the Cube pulled back, and shifted over to a depression in the grid deep enough to resemble the gravity well of a planet.

"Now, what happens when we introduce Sam into this environment during a Leap?" A small blue sphere rolled out onto the plane. "The sphere represents Sam. As you can see, the temporokinetic energy released by the Leap is sufficient to keep him from getting trapped by situations with lesser importance . . ." The sphere rolled into one of the minor depressions, but bounced back out of it. ". . . However, the stress caused by more significant events will create enough of a distortion to trap him." The sphere rolled up to the edge of one of the gravity-well depressions and plummeted into it. "The only way for him to escape is to alter the set of decisions and probabilities surrounding that moment in time; if he succeeds, the reconfiguration process will provide enough temporokinetic force to cause him to Leap again." The floor of the gravity-well depression in which the sphere rested suddenly snapped upwards as if some of the tension holding it down had been released. The sphere flew up out of the depression, bounced along the surface of the plane for a short distance, then rolled into another deep pit. The image was reminiscent of nothing so much as a golf ball making a hole in one.

"The apparent direction to the phenomenon was what influenced Ziggy to create the hypothesis that Sam was being Leaped around by a guiding force; however, according to the model I've just shown you, Sam's Leaping is a strictly physical process that can be explained without recourse to the interference if a higher power. In such a case, it makes sense to go by Occam's Razor and accept the simplest hypothesis, namely that there is no particular `sense' behind Sam's Leaps at all. The difficulty now facing us lies in figuring out the balance of forces involved in one of his Leap situations. If we can do that, we can predict in what `direction' he will `bounce', and knowing that we can set the retrieval program to catch him and bring him in. It was the uncertainty that kept us from being able to capture him in the first place - we never knew where he would be headed for next." Donna sighed, and couldn't keep the tiredness out of her voice. "The problem, of course, will be calculating the exact set of temporal vectors applying to a given situation. Since all of time could conceivably be exerting an effect on a single moment, it may be beyond our capabilities. However, it gives us a place to start." Her eyes were sore and bloodshot from hours spent staring at a computer screen, and she closed them for a moment. "It's all really incredibly obvious, but we never managed to notice it because it wasn't what we expected to see. We were treating the situation as if Sam was Leaping in a temporal vacuum."

She opened her eyes again and gazed out at three slightly-confused but suddenly hopeful faces. "And that's where the situation stands. Are there any comments, opinions, or questions?"

Al spoke up first. "If the situations that create the biggest what'd'you call it -- distortions -- are the ones with the greatest potential large-scale effects, why is Sam always ending up dealing with the small stuff? You know, the failing marriages of supermarket clerks, things like that?"

Donna nodded. "The thing to keep in mind is always that we're dealing with a greater continuum; the actual situation may appear trivial, but it will also have far-reaching consequences. For example, whether or not that supermarket clerk's marriage holds together or not may be the key as to whether or not a child is born who will one day grow up to be President. Or maybe the effect could be even less obvious; maybe the supermarket clerk's child would grow up to be the elementary teacher who provided the right support and inspiration at the right time to influence a ten-year-old child to later become a doctor and discover the cure for cancer. All the same, when you trace the chain of cause-and-effect back to its origins, the ultimate concern is whether or not that clerk's marriage held together."

"I get where you're coming from," Al said with a thoughtful expression. "For want of a nail the shoe was lost, for want of a shoe the horse was lost . . ."

". . . For want of a horse the general was lost, for want of a general the battle was lost, and for want of a victory the South won the Civil War." Al looked more than a little taken aback by Donna's final addition to the familiar causal-chain litany, and Donna had to chuckle. "Well, not literally. But we are talking about effects in that ballpark."

"So Sam can only change relatively small things, since that's all any one man can handle, but if he changes the right small things, he can tap into the potential energy of a major temporal-plane distortion and that will cause him to Leap?" Tina asked in her little-girl voice, nibbling distractedly at the tip of one immaculate nail.

"Exactly. And it turns out that Ziggy's predictions for what Sam's `mission' is supposed to be almost invariably correspond with the source of the temporal distortion. The match isn't always correct, but usually a bias towards picking the most obviously `wrong' thing will end up hitting the point of greatest tension."

"What bothers me about all this," Gushie chimed in, "is the narrowness of it all. There are a lot of other things going on in the Universe besides the course of human history. Why isn't Sam pulled in by any of those distortion points? And why does he usually stay within the confines of North America? Why doesn't he end up fixing the marriage of a supermarket clerk on Alpha Centauri?"

"Alpha Centauri is a star," Al sneered, seeing a chance to needle Gushie in exchange for yesterday's crack about his outfit. "I don't think you're going to find any supermarkets on a giant ball of thermonuclear plasma."

"Al." Donna turned to him, and her expression was so drawn that Al was shocked into seeing the dark circles under her eyes and the unsteadiness in her hands for the first time. He shut up without another word.

She turned back and addressed Gushie's remark. "As it turns out, there's a spatial effect as well; I didn't go into it because I was trying to keep the explanations simple. In general, he will tend to Leap to the major tension point that's `nearest' to him in both time and space; the definition of the "nearest" tension point gets a bit complex, though. I'm not entirely certain I understand it myself at the moment. As to why he's continually drawn to events in human history, it could be because he himself is part of human history -- he has been enmeshed in those particular sorts of probabilities and temporal distortions for his entire lifetime, and since all of the moments of his lifetime are contiguous with all the other moments in his lifetime, and all of those are in turn contiguous with the rest of Time, I'd guess there's some sort of natural affinity created. That may not be the case at all, but that would be my best guess right now." She swayed, and had to rest her hand against the smooth face of the Cube for a second to support herself. "Any other contributions?" Nobody spoke up. "All right then; I've set up the basic outlines for Ziggy to follow in calculating the temporal vectors affecting Sam's current Leap. Gushie, you can look them over and add anything you think would be helpful." The programmer nodded. "Right now, I think I'd better go lie down for a while. Come get me if anything major happens." She took a step to leave, and stumbled slightly. Instantly, Al stepped forward and caught her elbow.

"Will you be all right?" he asked her, concerned.

"I'll be fine. I just need some sleep. Thanks, though." She smiled and straightened up, then walked from the room with the careful dignity of someone who knows her strength is at a low ebb.

Al stared at the empty doorway for a moment, shaking his head. "Now there," he announced, "Goes one hell of a woman." Beside him, Tina twitched to attention, wondering if she should be getting jealous, but then Al added, "She should've been in the Navy." Tina relaxed, and slipped her arm around his.

"Goodness!" she chirped, with a theatrical glance at her watch (which was a fairly theatrical item in itself, since it was made of miniature versions of the rainbow blocks and blinking lights used in Ziggy's construction). "Look how early it still is! I bet Sam won't be needing you for at least another hour or so."

Al possessed an infallible radar for even the obliquest come-ons (which, admittedly this wasn't), and gave her a sidelong, raised-eyebrow look.

"D'you think that'd be long enough for you to show me that little red lace number again? I didn't get to see it as well as I would've liked to last night."

Giggling, Tina led him from the room.

"God, they're disgusting," Gushie grumped under his breath.

"Tch!" Ziggy purred, making him jump. "Sour grapes, Gushie!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just to keep the "flavor" of the original apa appearance, this is where I stopped the story between zines, and here's the "coming next time"-type material I tacked on to the end of it, to fill out the last space on the last page (I was paying for the printing, so I figured I'd get my money's worth):
> 
> TUNE IN NEXT TIME FOR THE ANSWERS TO THESE THRILLING QUESTIONS (assuming Ruth can find enough time to get them all on disk, that is):
> 
> WILL SAM GET HOME?
> 
> DONNA'S HYPOTHESIS ASIDE, IS THERE SOME INTELLIGENCE YET LURKING BEHIND THE PHENOMENON OF QUANTUM LEAPING? (Well, that one may have to wait till the time after next time . . .)
> 
> WILL SAM GET MEGAN AND TERRENCE (OR CASSANDRA AND NIGEL, IF YOU PREFER) TOGETHER?
> 
> WILL THERE BE COMPLICATIONS?
> 
> IS THE ANSWER TO THAT PRECEEDING QUESTION PRETTY DAMN OBVIOUS OR WHAT?
> 
> WHAT DOES RUTH THINK SHE'S DOING, ANYWAY?
> 
> WHEN WILL SHE GET TIRED OF TYPING OUT CAPITAL LETTERS?
> 
> WHAT'S THE ANSWER TO LIFE, THE UNIVERSE, AND EVERYTHING?
> 
> WELL, OKAY, IT'S 42, BUT WHAT'S THE QUESTION?
> 
> HOW MANY SURREALISTS DOES IT TAKE TO SCREW IN A LIGHT BULB?
> 
> HOW MANY COLLEGE FOOTBALL PLAYERS DOES IT TAKE TO SCREW IN A LIGHT BULB?
> 
> HOW MANY CALIFORNIANS DOES IT TAKE TO SCREW IN A LIGHT BULB?
> 
> THE ANSWERS TO ALL THESE QUESTIONS AND MORE IN THE NEXT THRILLING, SPINE-TINGLING, ALL-OUT, MEGA-AMAZING, SUPERLATIVELY-SNAZZY INSTALLMENT OF . . . THE TURBELLARIA TIMES!!!!! (Ask for it by name; the worst thing that can happen is the nice men in white coats will throw a butterfly net over your head and cart you off to a soft, comfy padded room . . .).


	6. Chapter Five

_Mad I am, and mad I must be . . ._

_ \-- Don Quixote  
In: Don Quixote of La Mancha, XXV  
by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra  
(Tr. by Henry Edward Watts)_

Sam awoke with a start, and for a moment could not remember where he was. Disoriented, his looked around the dim room until he spotted the lamp that graced his bedside table; it was a distinctive, antique lamp, with a verdigrised bronze base, and he'd used it to "anchor" his memories of the present situation before he went to sleep. "Anchoring" was a mental exercise that was second nature to him by now; the sight of the lamp triggered an avalanche of information. He sorted through it quickly, then gave a shuddering groan and dug the heels of his hands into his eyes.

He'd just had The Dream again. Not as vividly as between Leaps, but, even blurred and truncated as it had been, the core of it remained intact and kept every last bit of its emotional wallop. The horrible feeling of despair and desolation the dream left behind was doubled by knowing that none of it had been true, and he hadn't been able to help Al after all.

He sat up and wrapped his arms around his blanket-covered shins, resting his chin on his knees. Throughout his long career as a Leaper, the one possibility that scared him most of all was that he'd lose his sanity. As long as he knew who he was, as long as he could keep his self intact, he had as much of a fighting chance as he could ever hope for. But if he lost that focus for even a minute, he might fail to successfully complete a Leap. In that case, chances were good he would be trapped with no hope of reprieve, doomed to live out a life of insanity in somebody else's body while that unfortunate person in turn would be stuck in Sam's body, locked in the future with no chance to return home. It was unthinkable, but, unfortunately, it was all too possible and Sam knew it. When you got right down to it, he was surprised he'd lasted this long -- his psych profiles always came back with "extremely stable" stamped on them, but there was a limit to how much anyone could take. He wondered if he'd reached his.

The thought made him shiver, a marrow-deep, full-body shiver, and he hugged his knees more tightly still. Then he took a deep breath, and began to take stock of the space between his ears, as deliberately and logically as possible.

The result was somewhat comforting. So far as he could tell, Sam Beckett still survived as a coherent, functioning collection of memories and personality traits; he sensed a distressing undercurrent of Albert Kinsen's identity, but it was lying low, whispering in the background, and making no overt attempts to displace or assimilate the fragile tangle of thoughts and concepts that called itself "Sam". So far, so good. Identity still existed. But what about that identity's competence to recognize reality?

That was where things got unpleasant. His recent acceptance of a dream as a real event disturbed him profoundly. Still, with the application of calm logic, he saw a certain amount of hope.

First of all, he'd always had extremely detailed, vivid, and (relatively speaking) coherent dreams; in fact, his dreams were unusually strong in all three areas, from what he could gather through reading and conversations with acquaintances. Still, that wasn't unexpected for someone with good visualizing capabilities and above-average intelligence (no matter how many tests and experts declared him a genius, Sam was never willing to describe himself in those terms; for one thing, he never felt very smart at all). Despite the intensity of his dreams, he'd never had any trouble distinguishing them from reality, even in early childhood, for the simple reason that they clearly did not fit into the normal flow of reality. Dreams were always out of context, were always followed by waking up, and quickly showed gaping flaws in logic when closely examined. Leaping threw a monkey wrench into the works by removing the element of context.

As a Leaper, Sam did not experience a normal flow of reality for more than a few days at a stretch before that reality was broken off and replaced wholesale with another. The only thing marking the divisions between Leaps was the Leap Effect itself. Therefore, if a dream happened to insert itself in the blank space between Leaps -- and especially if it mimicked a Leap in its form -- he would never have any sense of interrupted reality: his current reality was nothing but interruptions. Without a sense of interrupted reality, he would have no cause to examine remembered events logically, and so might fall into the trap of accepting as real something that was not without ever thinking much about it. But that didn't necessarily mean he was insane. The normal -- "sane" -- functioning of the human mind automatically assumes a continuous flow of reality. When presented with the disjunct reality of Leaping, his mind's algorithms tried to process it as if it were still continuous, and therefore failed to deal with it properly. The situation was reminiscent of giving a computer program data it isn't equipped to handle and getting back useless information; the computer program isn't necessarily at fault -- it is still working perfectly on the level it had been designed for -- though it might appear to be damaged. Give that program the right kind of data, and everything will be fine again.

"Garbage in, garbage out," Sam murmured into the darkness, and managed a tiny smile. "I'm not crazy, it's just the rest of the world."

In that case, all he had to do was periodically examine each of his "memories" for logic and consistency, and he should be able to sort out any dreams that might sneak in while he wasn't paying attention. The swiss-cheeseing of his mind precluded going through memories of all of his Leaps, but he began sifting through the ones available to him, and quickly spotted a few that just didn't make sense on closer examination. They seemed as vivid as true memories at first, but the details were always blurred in some way, and though they might be long on emotional resonance they were distressingly short on logic. Take the dream he'd just had: along with the flaws his earlier conversation with Al had highlighted, a number of other small things didn't fit. For example, in the dream he was surprised to see a streak of white in his hair, as if it were a trait developed by his body while he was off Leaping. But he'd had that streak of white for years before he first Leaped -- he should expect to see it. Also, in the dream, he watched the Leap Effect as if for the first time, though he'd seen the Effect before when Alia and Zoey Leaped. Taken as a whole, the dream positively bristled with inconsistencies. But it still cut deeply and painfully; logic had no power over the emotions of his dreams, and all the rational thought in the world couldn't keep them at bay.

He glanced at the clock sitting next to the antique lamp on the bedside table. As he'd suspected from the dim light filtering through the bedroom window, it was early morning. For a moment, he wondered if he should stay in bed a while longer, but rejected the idea on the grounds that he'd never be able to get back to sleep. There was nothing to do but get up and try to convince himself he felt ready to face the day.


	7. Chapter Six

_We'll pipe and we'll sing, love  
We'll dance in a ring, love  
When each lad takes his lass  
All on the green grass._

_ \-- "Rosebud in June"  
(Trad., after Steeleye Span)_

Later that morning (and later in a morning thirteen years in the past), Al stepped into the Imaging Chamber and found himself back in Albert Kinsen's bedroom. He had a lungful of air ready for a greeting, but when he took in the scene before him, he decided to stay quiet for a few minutes. Sam was facing away from him, his attention focused on the full-length mirror hanging on the inside of the open closet door. Barefoot and shirtless, wearing only a pair of jeans and a swordbelt, he was running through a series of maneuvers with Kinsen's broadsword. Al eyed the performance critically; he didn't know much about Medieval swordfighting, but he recognized many of the moves as being adapted from a kata he'd seen Sam practice before. Other moves were completely alien and likely part of Kinsen's neural legacy, while a few had the look of pure improvisation. If nothing else, Kinsen was certainly in good shape; Al could see his reflection in the mirror -- tall, broad-shouldered and heavily muscular -- even though the person casting the reflection looked like Sam Beckett. If he squinted just right, Al could see Sam's image blur and vanish, revealing the less surreal scene of Kinsen's body casting Kinsen's reflection, but if he stopped concentrating for a second, there was "Sam" again, an exact replica of the body in the Waiting Room thirteen years in the future.

That was one of the side effects of Leaping it had taken Al the longest to get used to -- some Leaps he only saw the body Sam was wearing and sometimes he only saw Sam, but more often there was an odd, double-vision effect where he could see either Sam or Sam's host depending on how he focused his attention. It was a lot like the optical illusion where a single drawing can look like either a vase or two human faces, but the mind can never resolve both images at once. Al never had been able to figure out how it all worked in relation to Leaping, though he suspected it had something to do with brain waves; after all, he was an hallucination to Sam and Sam was an hallucination to him, so if a few wires got crossed somewhere along the way, that wasn't too surprising. And Sam, looking at things from the inside of the body in question, would logically see the reflection of that body rather than his own, since he wasn't looking at a hologram but was instead seeing the literal, physical reality in which he existed. The thing that was really confusing was the way small children and animals could see Sam as Sam (and could see Al, too, for that matter), somehow bypassing the physical reality . . . but then, that was neither here nor there, and Al rarely wasted too much time worrying about things he had no hope of controlling.

When a few minutes had gone by and Sam still hadn't noticed he was there, Al decided to announce his presence. He waited until Sam worked himself into an especially silly-looking position, then cleared his throat politely and remarked, "Hey, y'know, you're pretty good with that thing."

Sam practically levitated. He ended up leaning with his back against the mirror, and fixed Al with an accusing eye.   
"If you can't knock, can you at least have the courtesy to reflect?" he asked dryly.

"How? I'm a neurological hologram -- I don't exist outside your visual cortex, at least in 1987. And I meant it; you're pretty good with that sword."

Sam realized he was still holding the object under discussion, and sheathed it (without looking, Al noticed). "Yeah, well, most of it's what I inherited from our friend Al Kinsen. I have to admit, though, it's a lot of fun." His eyes sparkled. "I might take this up for real . . ." he trailed off, and the sparkle left his eyes . . . someday."

Meaning "if-I-ever-get-home" someday. It was on the tip of Al's tongue to tell Sam about Donna's new theory, but to do so would have violated two of the most sacred rules on the Project: never tell Sam about any new theories or rescue attempts, and never tell him about Donna. Both edicts were Donna's idea, in fact. According to her, Sam should be kept as free from outside distractions as possible while he was Leaping so that he could concentrate on carrying out his "missions" successfully. If he ever failed in that, he would be stuck forever in the past with all hope of retrieving him gone. Al saw the truth in that train of thought, but that didn't keep him from disliking the need to withhold hopeful information from Sam; after all, the only thing Sam had to keep him going, ultimately, was hope.  
With practiced ease, Al steered the conversation back to lighter topics. "Huh. Can't say I'm surprised. After all, you were the guy who rented _Iron and Silk_ three times just to watch the stuff with the swords."

"What?" Sam asked, as he unbuckled the swordbelt.

"Never mind," Al said, realizing he'd hit one of the holes in Sam's memory. "What's the plan for today?"

"Haven't got one yet. Cass -- Megan -- and I are supposed to help with the Arts and Crafts Faire." According to the Festival schedule Sam had memorized the night before, the major event today -- Saturday -- would be the Arts and Crafts Faire, followed on Sunday by a series of musical performances by YeGODS members, with a combat-skills Tournament finishing things off on Monday. "I don't know if Nigel will be there or not. I figure I'll play it by ear."

"Nigel's the guy you're supposed to hook Megan up with, right? The one whose real name is Terrence?"

"Uh-huh." Sam fished some clothing out of the closet, then padded across to the wardrobe in search of something else. He surfaced after a few seconds as a thought struck him. "Say, you're here awfully early today; I thought you had a late night planned with Tina."

"A late night . . . and an early morning," Al said, radiating smugness.

Sam rolled his eyes heavenward. "Spare me the details," he said, in his most long-suffering voice. Then: "Ah-hah, here it is." He pulled out a black leather vest and added it to the clothing on the bed. He paused consideringly then, running a hand through his hair. He'd managed to work up a sweat during his brief workout, and he decided he'd better get cleaned up.

"I'll just run down the hall and take a quick shower," he told Al, and headed for the door.

"Pardon me if I don't join you," Al said, "But I've seen enough bathrooms in this job to last me the rest of my life." He caught the tail end of Sam's chuckle as his friend exited.

***

Sam returned to find Al reading through the titles on Kinsen's many bookshelves. Al heard him close the door and asked, "So, is there anything good in here?"

"He has a few rare texts on Old English sagas," Sam replied absently. He had a towel wrapped around his waist, and the jeans he'd been wearing were slung over his arm.

"Let me repeat that: is there anything good in here?"

"You're a Philistine, Al," Sam said, and tossed the jeans into the hamper by the closet.

Al turned around and with great dignity replied, "No, I'm Italian."

Sam didn't even bother to answer that one; instead, he just unwrapped the towel from around his waist and used it to dry his hair, temporarily bringing the conversation to a halt. That surprised Al. Sam didn't have any particular hangups about undressing before people he considered to be close friends, but otherwise he was inclined to be, in his terms, "modest" (and in Al's terms, "prudish"). The fact that he was acting so casually at the moment implied he had enough of his memory intact to know exactly how old and close his friendship with Al happened to be -- a far cry from some Leaps, where he occasionally had trouble remembering who Al was. Taken along with the other sparks of unexpected memory Sam had been displaying, it was unsettling. Al had the itchy feeling that, at any moment, Sam would remember something unfortunate . . . like the fact that he was married, for example. Donna was right enough in thinking the minute that kind of memory surfaced, it would be guaranteed to throw him off his stride, and that was the last thing any of them -- especially Sam -- needed. It looked as if Al would need to keep on his toes during this Leap.

Sam finished drying his hair and tossed the towel into the hamper, then inspected the clothing he'd laid out on the bed. The leather vest had an emblem sewn on the left-hand side, over the heart: a shield-shape depicting a ferocious white bear (with red eyes, claws, and tongue) rearing back on its hind legs, against a field of blue. Sam's erratic store of knowledge informed him that this would be technically described as "azure, a bear rampant argent". There were also phrases specifying that the bear's eyes and claws were red, he knew, but the words themselves were missing. The swiss-cheese effect of Leaping could be amazingly precise at times, removing almost microscopic bits of memory as easily as huge chunks.

"Huh," he remarked, running a fingertip over the emblem, "I wonder if this is Kinsen's family crest?"

"I'd say that's a good bet," Al said. "It sure is important to him, whatever it is." Al's tone of voice was odd, and Sam glanced at him.

"Why?" he asked cautiously. Al had one hand covering his mouth, and Sam was sure it was there to hide a smile.

"Because Kinsen has a tattoo of it," Al said, his eyes dancing.

"He does?" That was news to Sam. "I didn't notice any tattoo."

"Well, no you probably wouldn't've," Al replied, and Sam could tell the man was a hairsbreadth away from dissolving into laughter.

"What is that supposed to mean? I . . ." Sam broke off in midsentence, his mouth hanging open, as the realization struck him. He closed his mouth, twisted around to look as far back over his shoulder as he could, and caught a glimpse of blue and white, much foreshortened.

"Ooooh, boy," he groaned. Al finally lost control and began to laugh. A few seconds later, for want of anything better to do, Sam joined him.

***

Once Sam recovered, he was dressed within fifteen minutes and stood inspecting himself in the mirror: blue, long-sleeved, mid-thigh tunic, white breeches, black boots, and black leather vest. Megan had been all too happy to suggest an outfit when he'd casually asked her what she thought he should wear today, and the result wasn't half bad. He took a moment to adjust the laces of the vest, and decided that was the one thing he wasn't too thrilled with -- everything was laced, including the cuffs of the tunic's sleeves. Buttons were beginning to look like a clever invention indeed.

***

He turned slightly, still studying the mirror, and asked Al, "What do you think?"

"I think we clash," Al said. Today, he was wearing an outfit that leaned heavily toward the deep turquoise tones, while the blue in Sam's clothing was closer to the true blues. Side-by-side, the two colors made each other look somewhat off-tone.

Sam snorted. "Nobody's going to see you," he pointed out, "so why worry?" The blue/white/black color scheme definitely suited Kinsen, who (Nordic Society name aside) was dark-haired grey-eyed. The bump on Sam's head had gone down during the night, leaving him with an ugly bruise; fortunately, it was close enough to the hairline to be largely hidden, and a bandage wasn't necessary this morning. "I'll see me," Al shot back.

"Well, at least we aren't in orange and purple or something," Sam said in an attempt to soothe Al's sense of aesthetics.

"Actually, opposite colors can work pretty well together."

Sam remembered one of Al's more eye-twisting shirts and winced. _To each his own,_ he reminded himself. "See you downstairs," he said, and exited the room.

Megan -- "Lady Cassandra", since she was in Society mode -- waited at the foot of the stairs, tapping her foot. She wore a gown of deep forest green with lighter green trim, and green ribbons were braided into her hair.

"Honestly," she said, "Men always complain about how long women take to get dressed." Then, before Sam could respond, she exclaimed, horrified, "You're going out like that?"

"Uh, I was." Sam slowed his descent and stopped three-quarters of the way down the staircase. From the corner of his eye, he saw Al blink in next to Megan, having had Gushie re-center his site of projection. "Why? What's wrong?"

"Oh, for heaven's sake!" she brushed past him, heading upstairs. "I'll get it, you go on down."

"Get what?" Al asked when Sam reached him.

"Dunno. It's a good thing she's such a take-charge sort -- I wish I had someone like her on every Leap. . ."

"You'd forget your own head, wouldn't you?" Megan remarked, reappearing at the head of the stairs.

". . . Sort of," Sam finished under his breath.

She carried a long strip of white cloth in one hand and a cloak thrown over her arm. She had Sam hitch up his vest while she tied the white cloth around his midriff as a sash, belting in the blue tunic at the waist.

"There," she said with satisfaction. "It wouldn't do to have a knight of the Realm showing up without his sash, would it?" She gave him such a sunny smile he forgave her for being a bit overbearing.

"You're right -- I would forget my own head," he told her, smiling back.

"You also forgot your cloak," she said handing it to him. "It's chilly out there this morning. Well, I guess that's everything -- come on, we promised Isabel we'd help her set up."

When they arrived back at the city park, Sam discovered that Isabel was the stern-faced woman who'd been in charge of the sparring matches the day before. She wasn't quite so daunting this morning, not being officially on duty, and she greeted Sam and Megan quite cheerfully. She wore another elaborately embroidered dress, and it turned out she had done the embroidery herself. She was setting up a booth in the area staked out for the Arts and Crafts Faire, partly for a demonstration exhibit of Society embroidery, partly as a place to sell some of her work, and partly as a place to take custom orders -- the latter, she told Sam, being the way in which she made most of the money she earned from her hobby.

Besides Isabel, Megan, and Sam, the teenager who'd been assisting Isabel the day before was also there helping out; from what Sam could gather, his Society name was Ned, and he was Isabel's son. Today, instead of brown roughspun, he wore a particolored outfit of red and gold that made Sam feel positively drab by comparison.

With four people working together, setting up the booth hardly took any time at all. Sam had hopes of leaving to search for Nigel/Terrence, but more people arrived to begin setting up and Megan quickly and cheerfully volunteered the services of herself and her brother to a young man struggling under a load of tapestries. Unable to back out without being extremely rude, Sam reluctantly complied. After that, they were recruited by a couple unloading pottery from the back of a truck. Sam had to admire the community spirit of the group; all around, people pitched in to help each other, with much talking and laughter along the way. It was nice to see so much of that kind of thing in one spot, but it wasn't helping him complete his Leap any faster.

Without warning, Al blinked in out of nowhere, and Sam barely managed to avoid dropping a cardboard box full of ceramic goblets.

"I found Terrence for you," he informed Sam, oblivious to the effect of his sudden entrance. "He's over there helping someone put up a tent." Al hooked his thumb in the direction of a large crowd of milling people, but the area was rapidly becoming filling up with crowded with tents, booths, tables and Ye GODS members, and Sam couldn't pick out Terrence. At least he knew the man was there.

There were too many people around for Sam to be able to talk to Al easily, so eventually the Observer wandered off through the crowd to see if anything interesting was happening elsewhere. Sam unloaded things and shifted them around as needed, using the time to get a better feel for the Society. Like most specialized social groups, YeGODS was in many ways its own separate world; since it looked as if he'd be spending a fair portion of this Leap living in that world, he wanted to learn as much about its rules and workings as he could -- preferably now, at the beginning of things.

When he got a free moment, he struck up a conversation with the first non-busy person he could find, a small, round woman draped in vivid plaids; she introduced herself as Lady Lochdubh, and they conversed amiably for a few moments; from her, Sam learned the Festival was a major social event for the Society, attracting YeGODS members from miles around, especially those who wished to take part in the Tournament and possibly gain a knighthood. Sam was a little surprised at the apparent geographical range of YeGODS' "Kingdom" -- it seemed to be giving the SCA some serious competition, at least on a statewide level. Lady Lochdubh was herself from Yreka, several miles to the north.

At that point, Sam's brief information-gathering session ended abruptly with the arrival of a third individual, a ginger-haired man with clean-cut features and a Highlands outfit to rival the Lady Lochdubh's. Without introducing himself, he glanced at the heraldic badge on Sam's vest and remarked, "Judging from the device, you must be the famous Sir Bjorn of the Manor, am I right?"

The man oozed arrogance, and Sam disliked him immediately; he especially didn't care for the sarcastic edge in the newcomer's voice. He was framing a polite but chilly reply when Lady Lochdubh beat him to the punch.

"You are, and you'd do well to remember your manners," she said stiffly. "Sir Bjorn," she continued, making introductions with a cool formality, "This is Lord McAllister of Strathbane. Lord McAllister, this is Sir Bjorn of the Manor, Knight of the Realm."

The two men shook hands; McAllister applied a bit more pressure than courtesy required, and Sam replied in kind, annoyed enough to dislike allowing McAllister to get the better of him, even in a relatively silly macho convention. McAllister raised an eyebrow and remarked, "It's quite a pity we won't have a chance to meet each other in combat tomorrow; I'm curious to know if you'd live up to your reputation."

"Maybe some other time," Sam told him, with the tight-lipped smile he used in situations where what he really wanted to do was punch someone in the nose.

Seeing he wasn't going to get much of a rise out of Sam, McAllister focused his attention on Lady Lochdubh. "I do hope you'll be favoring us with more of your charming piping tomorrow, m'Lady," he said, putting enough of a twist on the word "charming" to make the politely-worded statement a borderline insult.

"I do indeed plan to play," Lady Lochdubh replied, "A good day to you, m'Lord." She spoke with such an air of finality that even McAllister couldn't easily ignore it. He responded by giving the two of them a mocking bow, then he turned and lost himself in the crowd.

Once he was gone, the Lady Lochdubh sighed. "I apologize to you for that. McAllister's a new addition to the Society out our way, and he seems to be trying to set a new record for alienating as many people as possible in the shortest time. The SCA tossed him out on his ear, and some people are willing to like him for that reason alone, but I personally think the SCA had the right idea."

"Based on that sample, I'd be willing to agree with you. What's his problem, anyway?"

"Other than extreme social maladjustment, nobody knows," the Lady snorted, and obviously didn't think the question was worth even a moment's worth of her attention. "The man's giving tartan a bad name."

They chatted a moment more, then went their separate ways. Sam decided to search out Terrence; he had a fair idea of Megan's personality by now, but he didn't know much about the other half of the couple he was supposed to bring together. He found Terrence, as Al had said, across the Faire grounds, helping the people there set up their tents and booths. From a distance, Sam had the unusual experience of seeing Al blink in next to Terrence, get his bearings, and then blink out.

Almost instantaneously, the Observer appeared at Sam's side, and told him, "Terrence is still over on the other side . . ." He looked around and realized that he'd only moved about thirty yards from Terrence's position, and corrected himself, " . . . Terrence is still over here, but I guess you knew that."

"Uh-huh. I want to watch him for a minute -- get a feel for his personality -- so I know how to handle him."

Sam quickly found a spot in a group of people setting up a tent, and while he worked, he watched Terrence. What he saw confirmed his vague first impressions: the young man was energetic, enthusiastic, and very physical -- his gestures and body language were quick, strong, and broad. He worked hard and laughed often, usually getting everyone around him to laugh, too. He was also very quick to lend a hand to someone who needed it, even to the point of temporarily abandoning what he himself was currently doing, returning to his old task once he was through helping the other person.

Altruistic, impulsive, and somewhat easy to distract, Sam decided. He found he liked Terrence, despite yesterday's personal injury, and thought Megan might be just the person to help the young man settle down somewhat. The match was starting to look better and better -- if he could just pull it off.

He followed Terrence around the Faire grounds, occupying himself some distance away from his quarry for discreet observation, and saw more of the same. Terrence seemed able to maintain his high energy level for an indefinite length of time.

"Look at him, Al," Sam said ruefully, fitting an awning to a support pole as he spoke. Across a wide aisleway, Terrence was stacking boxes at a backbreaking rate. "He's making me feel old."

Actually, Al thought Terrence seemed remarkably like a younger Sam Beckett -- a little more hyperactive and a little less scholarly, but with that same cheerful, Boy Scout nature. It was on the tip of his tongue to say as much, but Sam had already moved on.

"I think Megan needs a little more cool-down time before we can try to get the two of them together. Why don't you keep tabs on Terrence and check in with me periodically so I'll know where he is? I'll keep an eye on Megan. With luck, we can try for a reconciliation this afternoon."

"Okay." Al wondered if Sam knew how . . . professional he was starting to sound about Leaping; it was almost as if he'd begun to get used to it. Al wasn't sure if that was a good thing or not.

Their conversation got cut off when all of the Society members were called together for a quick meeting in the center of the Faire grounds. Everyone not manning a booth was instructed to perform the dual role of usher and, for want of a better term, window dressing; in the exact words of the local Seneschal, "Hang around, look good, and keep the visitors in line -- but remember, be courteous!" A few people were singled out to be "greeters", to stand at the entrance of the park and welcome people to the Faire; Megan got assigned to that duty, and seemed very pleased about it.

After that, the Faire officially opened to members of the general public. For the rest of the morning, Sam didn't manage to get much accomplished on his Leap's mission. He did, however, manage to pick up a lot of gossip about YeGODS members (nothing of much use to Sam, but Al enjoyed some of the juicier items for their entertainment value). He checked up on Megan periodically, and the job of greeter seemed to agree well with her -- she loved playing the courtly noble lady, and especially enjoyed making sweeping curtseys with her long skirts. It was a more tiring job than one might expect at first, but it seemed to be putting her in a good mood, so Sam began to have definite hopes of getting her together with Terrence before the day was out. Al dutifully kept watch on Terrence, shamelessly eavesdropping on people's conversations as he did so -- in fact, he ended up being Sam's best source of gossip.

Eventually, around noontime, Sam realized it had been a while since Al had last checked in with him and decided to go looking. He walked through the crowded Faire, searching for his friend, and found to his annoyance that finding him was a more difficult task than he'd expected. Usually, Al's dress sense made him stand out in a crowd, but Society members favored vivid hues of every shade in the rainbow, and spotting Al against the riot of color wasn't easy. He finally found him at the refreshments tent, avidly watching one of the serving maids; she was young and pretty, her blouse was low-cut and loosely laced, and her figure gave new meaning to the word "buxom".

Sam walked up to Al and said, as inconspicuously as possible, "I thought you were supposed to be keeping an eye on Nigel."

"Nigel?" Al asked, not looking away from the barmaid. "We're interested in a guy named Terrence, aren't we?"

"They're the same person. Nigel is Terrence's Society name."

Al groaned. "Jeez, that's right. All this Medieval playacting gets confusing," he lamented. "I'm having a hell of a time keeping track of who's who and what's what."

"Who's on first. What's on second." Sam rubbed a hand over his mouth as he spoke, to hide a smile.

Annoyed, Al turned to look at him for the first time in the conversation. "Oh, ha, ha. Very funny. Don't quit your day job just yet."

"I wasn't planning to," Sam told him. "So where's Terrence?" He spoke quietly, hardly moving his lips. Al had to admit Sam was getting good at that; he might even be able to moonlight as a ventriloquist someday.

"Over there," Al said, jerking his thumb in the direction of a nearby pavilion. "Playing chess." Sam glanced in the indicated direction.

"You're right," he said, somewhat surprised.

"Of course I'm right. Contrary to popular belief, I can keep my mind on two things at once," Al told him dryly. The buxom serving girl walked past carrying an order of drinks to one of the tables set in the tent's shade, and Al perked up instantly.

"Ooooh, look at this," he said trying to nudge Sam in the ribs. All he succeeded in doing was putting his holographic elbow right through Sam's torso and into his liver. "She's gonna bend over to set that tray down . . ."

"Uh-huh. Have fun -- I'm going over to talk with Nigel."

"Terrence."

"Both of 'em."

***

"Bjorn!" Nigel/Terrence hailed Sam, setting the last few chess pieces in place. "How about a game?" He gestured at the chair across from him. "I'll even let you win," he added cheerfully.

Actually, Sam could probably have beaten him six ways from Sunday. In his entire adult life nobody had beaten him at chess, and he'd only been forced to declare a draw four times: once in a friendly, off-the-record game with a world-class Grand Master, once by Al, and twice by Ziggy. Today, though, he didn't feel much like playing chess and declined as gracefully as he could. Terrence shrugged good-naturedly and straightened one of the rooks on its square.

They were near the entrance to the park, and Sam caught a glimpse of his "sister" over Terrence's shoulder. It seemed she, too, had made the acquaintance of McAllister -- or, at least, McAllister was attempting to force his acquaintance on her. The distance was too great for Sam to catch the words, but their body language told the story loud and clear: McAllister was hitting on Megan, and she was fending him off as best she could, being too polite to simply tell him to take a hike. Sam was uniquely equipped to sympathize with her, having been on the receiving end of that kind of treatment himself a few times; his first impulse as both an individual and a surrogate big brother was to go over and pleasantly offer to knock McAllister's teeth down his throat. Inspiration struck first, however, and Sam turned to Terrence.

"You might ask him if he'd care to play a game," Sam said dryly, pointing in McAllister's direction. Terrence twisted in his chair to get a view, absorbed the situation instantly, and was on his way over in the blink of an eye.

Sam smothered a grin as he watched the proceedings; he didn't need to hear a single word to understand what was going on. Terrence went striding over and asked something superficially good-humored, probably along the lines of, "Is this guy bothering thee, m'lady?" McAllister glared at him with narrowed eyes, but Terrence glared back, and had the advantage of height and weight. For a moment, the two of them stood in an absolutely classic pose of mutual challenge (_Like two wolves facing off over a kill,_ Sam thought), then McAllister broke off and sauntered away, every line of his body proclaiming, "To hell with both of you."

Terrence and Megan exchanged a few words; at first, Megan's expression was huffy ("I can take care of myself, you know!", it said), but softened somewhat after a moment, and even though Sam wasn't much of a lip reader he could see her grudgingly shape the words "Thank you."

_Score One for the Leaper,_ Sam thought happily, and decided to push the advantage.

Before either of them could get away, he walked over and announced, "It's almost lunchtime -- why don't the three of us go get something to eat?" Terrence thought it was a splendid idea, but Megan hesitated, saying that she should stay with her greeting duties.

"You'll hardly be able to greet people if you collapse from low blood sugar, will you?" Sam asked, taking her elbow and guiding her towards the refreshments tent. "I'm sure the other greeters can take up the slack for a little while." She gave in, and they set off together.

The first thing Terrence did when they sat down to eat was to make a formal apology for hitting Sam the night before. While a very courtly gesture, it also had the unfortunate effect of reminding Megan why she was mad at Terrence to begin with. She spent the beginning of the meal radiating a chilly politeness towards Terrence, but Sam did his best to work her out of it, and Terrence pitched in by ladling on the charm. Watching the two of them interact, Sam saw his guess of a mutual but strained attraction confirmed. If he could just get them   
\-- and especially Megan -- to relax a little, their feelings for each other should do the rest and he would Leap. Not too terrible a task, especially compared to some of the problems he'd faced on other Leaps. In fact, the more he saw of the intended pair in action, the better he liked the match. Terrence had a gift for drawing Megan out, and Megan would be a good moderating influence to Terrence's headstrong nature. With personalities like that, they'd either make a brilliant team or drive each other stark raving mad . . . or perhaps do both.

After lunch, they split up to continue spreading "local color" around the Faire, but about ten minutes later Sam caught sight of Terrence and Megan chatting together, with a little bit of flirtation mixed in. Things were definitely shaping up nicely. Sam did an about face and began drifting towards the other side of the grounds, whistling "Milyenkoi Ti Moi", the only traditional folk melody his swiss-cheese memory would yield up at the moment.

Al followed, drifting through passers-by and tents like an anachronistic ghost. "Huh? Aren't you going over to them?" he asked, confused.

Sam shook his head and kept whistling.

"But you should be encouraging them!"

Sam steered toward the edge of the Faire, and spotted a pay phone off by the parking lot; telephones were an old standby for holding discussions with Al in crowded places, and he walked over an picked up the receiver.

"I can't go around hanging over them," he told Al. "For one thing, neither of them's the type to let themselves be pressured into anything -- if I push too hard, one or both of them will start resisting on principle."

Al puffed on his cigar and made a "well, maybe" noise in the back of his throat.

"For another thing, you of all people should know that three's a crowd," Sam added, with an edge of humor.

"Now there's where you're wrong," Al corrected him. His eyes took on a faraway, dreamy expression. "I remember a pair of identical twin sisters who liked to do everything together . . ."

Sam rested his forehead against his hand and shook his head. "Has anyone ever told you you're utterly hopeless?" he asked.

"Sure. Lots of times." Al didn't sound particularly bothered by the fact. "You've said it more than once."

"I have? I hate being swiss-cheesed like this. Anyway, getting back to business, I think this Leap's looking pretty good. Megan and Terrence seem to like each other fine, they just need to get past their hang-ups so they can work things out. Megan's spent so long `taking care' of Albert it's turned into a habit; I think she's using her `responsibility' to him as a shield to avoid getting too attached to Terrence. She doesn't always seem comfortable with strong emotions, and plus, she's so used to looking after someone else, she's not used to thinking about taking care of herself."

Al snorted. "That last bit sounds a little like someone I know," he remarked. Sam pointedly ignored him.

"And Terrence is too busy being a daring knight in shining armor to always stop and think about what he's doing . . ." he continued.

"That sounds like someone I know, too," Al interjected, and again Sam ignored him.

" . . . or settle down enough to start building a really solid relationship. I think he's ready to change, though, if Megan's willing -- she's the one we really need to keep nudging in the right direction."

"How're you gonna do that if you're out here talking to me?" Al wanted to know. Sam rolled his eyes heavenward.

"Subtlety, Al, not sledgehammers -- that's the way to go on this one. Trust me." Sam hung up the phone and headed back to the Faire. Al followed, hoping his friend knew what the hell he was doing.

***

At the end of the day, Al had to admit it seemed as if Sam might be on top of things after all. With the sun setting and all the Faire's participants striking their booths and packing away their wares, Sam sought out Megan, and found her once again with Terrence.

"But I've got a rehearsal at Lucinda's right after the Faire," Megan was protesting, but with a hint of uncertainty.

"I can pick you up afterwards," Terrence said, cajoling.

Megan spotted Sam and offered another excuse. "I've got to cook dinner for Bjorn," she said.

"Bjorn is an adult, and can find his way around a kitchen if he has to," Sam remarked amiably, reaching conversational distance.

"So that's no problem," Terrence told Megan, nudging the charm up a few more notches, "And wouldn't it be a nice change not to have to cook for once?"

Megan glowered at Sam. "Men! You're ganging up on me."

Sam shrugged, amused.

She hesitated for a moment more, then decided.

"All right," she told Terrence, with mock annoyance. "I'll have dinner with you -- happy?"

"Ecstatic," Terrence replied, and made an elaborate bow, grandly sweeping off his plumed hat for extra emphasis. "I'll pick you up at half past seven, at Lucinda's, okay?"

"Okay. See you then."

Terrence strode off with a spring in his step, and Megan glared at Sam. "You could mind your own business," she said.

"I didn't want you to feel like you had to pass up on a good time just to take care of me," Sam told her casually, keeping a sharp eye on her reactions; he was touching on what he considered to be a major theme of the Leap. "I can look after myself if I have to."

"This from the man who almost forgot his knight's sash this morning," Megan shot back, but her tone was one of goodnatured teasing, and Sam had a sense that his message had gotten through, at least on a subliminal level.

"I would have remembered it, eventually," Sam lied, figuring it would be a true enough thing for Kinsen to say.  
"Eventually," Megan echoed, in a tone of voice implying that "eventually" might have taken a very long time indeed. "Come on -- Isabel's expecting us to help take down her booth."


	8. Chapter Seven

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did I mention how much fun I had with backstory?

_ \- In faith, Sancho, said Don Quixote, it would seem that thou art no saner than I am.  
\- Not so mad, but more peppery, answered  
Sancho.  
\-- Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra  
Don Quixote of La Mancha, XXV (Tr. by Henry Edward Watts)_

 

. . . I will keep them from harm and injustice.

\-- The Hippocratic Oath  
(Tr. by Ludwig Edelstein)

That evening, with Megan and Terrence out on their date, Sam was a bundle of twitchy, nervous energy. As patient as he could be while working on a project of any sort, whenever he ended up in a situation forcing him to simply sit and wait, it invariably drove him to distraction; his was the sort of personality that needed to be doing things, constantly.

In his present state of mind, Sam couldn't keep the mental concentration necessary to go through the rest of Kinsen's books, an activity that would otherwise have kept him happily engaged for the rest of the night. Instead, he roamed the house like a caged tiger, fiddling with this and that, and generally being very poor company. He nearly drove Al to distraction; like his enthusiasm, Sam's twitchiness could be infectious. Unfortunately, Al knew, he'd end up in an even worse state if left alone. In the past, Donna had taken over the task of keeping Sam company while he waited for the results of grant proposals, or shipments of equipment, or other such things that couldn't be helped or hurried; her steady temperament could absorb a huge dose of secondary nervousness without showing the slightest effect. Once Sam started Leaping, though, Al was forced into the job by default, and at times it nearly drove him crazy.

Sam quickly discovered that the grand piano in the living room was painfully out of tune (neither Albert nor his sister being players, apparently), and decided to tune it just to have something to occupy himself. He collected a set of makeshift tools and flung himself into the task with desperation. It was a useless activity, really, since nobody would be likely to play the piano in the foreseeable future, but at least it was nominally constructive.

In less time than Al would have expected, Sam laid aside his tools and sat down on the piano bench. He hummed a middle C (on top of everything else, Sam possessed perfect pitch), and touched the corresponding key; the two tones blended seamlessly. He then struck a series of flawless chords, which turned into scales, which turned into a scrap of something classical that Al vaguely recognized but couldn't put a name to. A few bars into the melody, Sam stopped, nodded, and looked momentarily pleased with himself. The calm only lasted a moment or so before he sighed, stood up, and stretched his arms.

"I wonder how things are going with Megan and Terrence," he said, for the umpteenth time.

"I could go and check for you," Al offered.

"No, that seems too close to voyeurism," Sam replied, absently striking a few notes on the piano keyboard. "I guess we'll just have to wait."

"You never know," Al said, in an attempt to be helpful, "you could Leap any minute if they get things worked out."

"Mmmmmnnh. I hope so." Sam's left hand joined his right on the keyboard, and he began picking out what seemed like a random series of notes. The randomness repeated, then began slowly evolving into a pattern; at the same moment Al recognized the pattern, Sam suddenly smashed down on the keyboard, creating a loud, dissonant burst of sound, quickly modulated into a complex set of delicate, spiralling melodies. Without warning, another crash of discordance cut them off, and a new set of melodic spirals evolved. The decidedly unusual piece of music was one of Sam's own compositions, which he called "The Bubble Chamber Sonata"; it dated back to the days when he'd tried to describe physics subjects in music. The resulting pieces hadn't gotten much public notice, but Sam hadn't cared, since he composed them strictly for his own amusement. The bubble chamber piece was Sam's favorite of the lot, and Al had a feeling one of the reasons Sam enjoyed it so much was a sneaking delight in having an excuse to really pound on the keyboard now and then. He certainly seemed to be having fun with it at the moment. Unfortunately, it meant he was getting into dangerous territory again, calling up memories that might just lead to others.

Sam banged out another particle collision, and Al raised his voice to be heard over it.

"Sam? It's a little hard to talk over this."

Sam nodded, and broke off mid-phrase. He began playing a quieter, more sedate tune -- and it was out of the frying pan and into the fire, because he chose "Fur Elise", which had been something of a private joke between himself and Donna. Frantically, Al tried to come up with a way to get Sam to stop playing, and in his desperation he went with the first thing that popped into his head.

"What's that?" he yelled suddenly, pointing back over Sam's shoulder. Sam, already on edge, whirled around, lost his balance, and sat back on the keyboard with a clang. His balance returned a second later, and his wits followed.

"What's what? There's nothing there!" he said indignantly.

"Uh. I guess not. Sorry -- nerves. You know how it is."

Sam turned back to the keyboard and gave Al the benefit of his most dubious expression. "Are you sure you're okay? You've been acting kind of weird lately." He began playing again, and this time it was "The Moonlight Sonata": still Beethoven but blessedly neutral.

"I'm fine, really. You, on the other hand, don't look so hot. Anything you feel like talking about?" The invitation had a double purpose: first, to get Sam to stop playing that damn piano before he got back into dangerous territory, and second, to give Sam a chance to talk through whatever bothered him enough to put faint but definite dark smudges under his eyes. Al had a good idea what it was already.

Sam stopped playing (one success), paused for a moment, then flipped the cover down over the keys. He stood a moment more, one hand resting on the cover, then spoke.

"I had . . . that dream again last night," he began, and described the whole thing, from beginning to end, speaking in a near-monotone and never once looking up at Al. He didn't move a muscle until he was done, then his hand slipped off the key cover and he sat down on the bench with his hands clasped between his knees.

_It's true,_ Al thought, _There's no hell worse than the one we dream up for ourselves._ The Faustian bargain Sam described from his dream was precisely the thing that would put him through the worst agony imaginable: go home and know that others will suffer when you could have helped them, or help strangers in need and never return home to those you love. It was a decision to torment any reasonably compassionate person, but Sam was far from reasonable in his compassion. Al had learned that back at the very beginning.

***

The first few times he'd encountered Sam back on Project Star Bright, he'd done his best to ignore the man. Al didn't have much use for "geniuses" in general, and even less use for geniuses who didn't know enough to mind their own business. Looking back on it, Al considered those few months in the middle of Star Bright to be the worst ones of his entire life; five years as a P.O.W. hadn't exactly been a picnic either, but then he'd been fueled by a desire to survive, to never let the enemy beat him, no matter what the cost. On Project Star Bright, he had no such goal on which to concentrate, and life had dealt him what seemed like the last straw, the final blow to break his will.

Up until he met Sam, Al Calavicci's life was a long and painful history of abandonments and betrayals. By the time he reached his late teens he was alone in the world, his mother having run off God-knew-where while he was still a child, and his beloved father and sister dead and buried. With no one left to care for but himself, he developed an aggressive philosophy of _carpe diem_, living from one moment to the next with little planning or care, dropping out of high school to experiment with a wild variety of careers and lifestyles. Eventually, he drifted back towards an education; he was sharp enough to get his G.E.D. easily, and decided, almost on a whim, to attend college. He entered a Navy R.O.T.C. program to pay his way, and reached one of the major turning points in his life.

In the military, he found the stability and order his existence thus far had been sorely lacking. He found a place that would give him a defined role in the world, a place to belong, and in turn he gave back his absolute, undivided loyalty. His almost recklessly -- but never stupidly -- aggressive approach to life caused him to be singled out as one of the elite, first a fighter pilot and later an astronaut. Along the way, the Navy also introduced him to a nurse named Beth, who later became his wife. With a certain sense of surprise, he found himself on the path to becoming, so help him, a Solid Citizen.

Then, during his second tour of duty in Vietnam, all of that was shattered when the enemy shot down his plane and captured him. After enduring five years of hell as a P.O.W., he returned home to find Beth gone and remarried, a loss that hurt him as half a decade of imprisonment could not. On top of that, the country for which he'd fought so long and wholeheartedly gave him a decidedly chilly welcome in its hurry to forget a painful and embarrassing war; that hurt too, not only because of what he'd suffered himself but also from the memory of the friends who'd fought, and all too often died, beside him. The first years after his return to the U.S. were hard ones, but he'd just had a crash course in survival, so he persevered.

The Navy was still there for him, at least, and he rose steadily though the ranks, all the way to Admiral. Professionally, life couldn't be better. Personally, the pain and betrayals continued. All of his youthful recklessness returned tenfold after Beth's departure, and he entered into several ill-advised marriages; as each one eroded and finally ended (often with fairly bitter feelings on both sides), the load of loss and anger he carried grew heavier, slowly wearing him down to within a whisper of breaking. He stopped caring about much of anything -- himself included -- and by the time his most recent marriage came to its inevitable conclusion during Star Bright, he was on a fast track to the gutter . . . until Sam Beckett grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and dragged him back.

At first, Al was suspicious and more than a little resentful. He could still remember his first real meeting with Sam. Al had had a few and was out looking for trouble (the thought of what he might have gotten into that time if Sam hadn't been there was enough to chill Al's blood in retrospect) when he'd run into that smartass Beckett kid everyone treated like some kind of god. Instead of doing the smart thing and leaving Al alone, the kid had latched on to him and told him in no uncertain terms that he was in no state to be out and about. It was just the two of them in the corridor, since it was fairly late, and Al was sunk in such a sullen rage over life, the universe and everything that some of it boiled up to the surface and he'd taken a swing at the kid. Not a really serious swing, more of a "Get the hell out of my way and leave me alone!" gesture, but before he knew it that kid had twisted Al's arm up behind his back and introduced his face to the wall. It was all as gently done as that sort of thing could be, but it shook Al badly. Sam held him there for a few seconds to get his attention (and by God, the kid was strong! -- no pencil-necked physics geek, that was for sure), then very calmly told him, "If you want a fight, it can wait till you're sober."

He released Al then, and was suddenly as cheerful and friendly as if nothing had happened.

"C'mon," he said, and started leading Al in the direction of the staff lounge. "Let's get you some coffee."

Al was with it enough to grumble, "Coffee doesn't help."

"I know," came the reply, "but it'll give us something to do while your liver cleans up your bloodstream."

After that, it seemed like Al could hardly turn around without bumping into Sam. It damn near drove him nuts -- he just couldn't figure out what the kid's angle was; by that point, Al was so sunk in depression and cynicism he'd convinced himself that nobody did anything without an angle. Eventually, though, after a lot of patience on Sam's part, he was forced to conclude that Sam didn't have an angle, beyond seeing Al didn't wreck his own life. It was an astounding realization for Al, and once his little circle of despair had been breached even that much, he slowly began to wake up to the rest of the world. What he saw was enough to make him cringe.

He'd been pretty well ignoring any paperwork that crossed his desk recently, and it turned out his poor, overworked secretary, Jan, had taken the time to fill it out herself, as if she didn't have enough on her plate already. And Darnell, the head tech of Delta Section, had taken over organizing the duty rosters, even though it was a task Al should have been handling. Nokowa had gone to meetings as Al's representative a few times, diplomatically stating that the head of Delta Section was "unable to leave his duties at the moment". And so on and so forth. Al's people had worked like mad to keep their Section running and to cover for their leader, and not one of them had made a peep about it in Al's presence. Their loyalty -- and his own abuse of it -- spurred Al out of the last of his depression, and he tackled his neglected duties with a vengeance. He also made it a point to go around and thank each one of his people personally, though without specifying precisely for what. Most of them shrugged it off with an embarrassed "You're welcome, sir," but Jan smiled at him and said, "Good to have you back, Admiral."

Once all of that was settled, Al turned his attention to the person responsible for his salvation and studied him with a curious eye. Sam was an incredible listener, patient and compassionate, willing to simply absorb the weight of another person's sorrows; on occasion, he asked a few strategic questions to bring out the full scope of a situation, and at other times he offered advice or opinions, but mostly he just listened. After the first few distrustful times, Al did most of the talking during their little get-togethers, and he always came out of them feeling better. Al's second wife had insisted they go see a marriage counselor a few times before their divorce became a sure thing, and Sam could do a person more good in just a few hours than that professional shrink could in a week of sessions.

In fact, Al wondered if Sam might not be a professional, since he seemed to have a degree in just about everything else, but when he accessed Sam's personnel file there was no sign of psychiatric training. It was a mystery that plagued him until, several years later, he and Sam attended a conference together and ran into one of Sam's old college buddies. Sam spent most of his evening monopolized by colleagues who wanted to argue theory with him, so Al ended up sitting to one side with Sam's friend (Dr. Frank Something-or-other), enjoying the complimentary drinks together. The major topic of discussion was, naturally enough, their mutual acquaintance. At one point, Frank mentioned how amazing it was that Sam had managed to get his first round of bachelor's degrees from M.I.T in just two years, given the number of extracurricular activities he'd had going on the side. Al's ears pricked up at the mention of the term "extracurricular activities" -- in his book, those words conjured forth a very specific set of images, mostly based on his own college experiences. He wondered if maybe his straight-laced best friend might have been a bit wilder in his youth, and asked Frank for details.

As it turned out, in this case "extracurricular activities" meant something quite different from Al's definition. According to Frank, Sam had been a combination friend/counselor/tutor to nearly half the student body of M.I.T.

"`Sam the Shrink', we called him," Frank reminisced. "All of us were smart and most of us had problems, but Sam was a guy you could always depend on. You could tell him what was bothering you and always get back advice -- good advice. He'd help you study for classes, too; I never would've gotten through Math 485 without him." Frank went on to describe how Sam, in one two-year stint, managed to tutor at least twelve people in various subjects, saved three good relationships and mediated the dissolution of four bad ones, and persuaded two potential suicides that life was worth living and professional counseling was a very good idea. "And that's just the stuff I know about," Frank said in conclusion, shaking his head, "never mind all the little everyday things, all the fights he stopped, or all the times he talked people out of being depressed, or drove 'em home if they were drunk." He drained his glass and concluded, "Hell, when he graduated, they should've given him a psych degree while they were at it." Al agreed.

But that exchange was several years down the line when Al first began to take a close look at Sam back on Project Star Bright; still, he managed to learn a great deal about his new friend by the simple process of observation. Once Sam's patient listening and sympathy had served their purpose and pulled Al out of the funk he was in, Al began turning the tables, guiding their subsequent conversations in directions that invited Sam to talk about himself. Their situations quickly reversed, with Sam doing most of the talking and Al doing most of the listening -- and learning.

First of all, Sam wasn't really a "kid", since he was entering his thirties; he just seemed young -- and Al was willing to bet he always would.

Second, despite a veneer of down-to earth practicality, Sam was a dreamer: a full-blown, starry-eyed, head-in-the-clouds visionary, given to spinning hopes and dreams and hypotheses into intricate castles in the air. What made him unusual was the fact he clearly knew many of his dreams were wildly outrageous, but was still willing to believe they could be made reality. It might take a lot of work and a lot of time, but, in his eyes, it could be done.

Finally, Sam possessed that absolute rarity, a heart of gold. He cared about the whole world and everyone in it, period. Al quickly realized his own case hadn't been anything special; if Sam saw anybody in the process of trashing their own lives, he stepped in to help almost by reflex. That kind of caring, as Al knew from long and painful experience, was very rare indeed.

Taken together, the sum of Sam's personality traits made Al worry. People like Sam would hold the door open for the person behind them -- and then wait patiently while half a hundred more filed through. People like Sam got taken advantage of, knocked around, treated with contempt. Eventually, they ended up broken and bitter, forgetting their dreams and their hope.

And that was wrong. Without dreamers, without people who cared, everything would grind to a halt. To prevent that, dreamers needed other people, people who knew how the world worked -- people like Al, in other words -- to look after them, and to see they kept that rare and vital gift of vision intact. If enough dreamers survived, kept going, spread their dreams . . . who knew what the future might hold?

Al never verbalized any of this to himself or anyone else, but he understood it on a deep and fundamental level, and, more importantly, he believed it. Relatively late in life, Al found a true friend and a Cause wrapped up in the same person, and by the time Project Star Bright came to a close he'd vowed in his heart that anybody or anything wanting to get at Sam Beckett was going to have to get through Al Calavicci first.

***

_But what can you do when a guy starts turning into his own worst enemy?_ Al wondered, looking at his tense, listless friend with worry. Al wasn't sure what to believe about dreams as a source of precognition (though he'd seen and heard a few creepy things in his time, that was for sure), but he did believe that dreams can sometimes reveal what the subconscious mind is doing, and it sounded as if Sam's lifelong Knight-In-Shining-Armor tendencies were starting to slide into a full-blown martyrdom complex.

Any doubts on that score were removed by Sam's next remark.

"It's just a dream," he said thoughtfully, "but maybe there's something to it. Maybe . . ." he trailed off, lost in thought.

"What the hell kind of a thing is that to say?" Al said, furious and horrified at the same time.

"Well, maybe it really is better for me just to keep Leaping," Sam said, still thoughtful. "I'm doing a lot more good like this than I ever could any other way."

"You're saying you don't want to come home?"

"No! God, no. Getting home is what I want more than anything else in the world. But I'm only one person, and there are so many people I could help . . ."

"Yoo-hoo -- Earth to Sam! In case your swiss-cheese brain has forgotten, there's a pretty substantial operation behind all this --" he gestured at the handlink " -- and we won't be able to keep it running forever. You'd end up going solo."

Sam's response was so quiet Al hardly even heard it.

"I know," he whispered.

Al had to get a very tight grip on himself before speaking. He wasn't angry at Sam so much as he was angry at the situation that could do this to his friend: years of continual stress, a discouraging lack of success at retrieving him to his own time and body, and an unending, intimate look at how much personal suffering there was in the world. When under pressure, many people (like Al) tended to retreat into themselves, ignoring the rest of the Universe; Sam, however, was the opposite -- he would turn outward, concentrating on the people around him, and all but forget about himself.

"Do you realize what you're saying?" Al grated out finally. "You're talking about this like you were the only one involved, but did you ever stop to think that this whole thing is a lot more complicated than that? What about all the other people who're working on this? What about Dr. Beeks, huh? She turned down a teaching position to stay on the Project, even though we can't afford to pay her half as much as that University offered. And Gushie -- at least a dozen private companies would kill to have a programmer of his caliber working for them, but he's still with us. Do you want to abandon them?" He desperately wanted to add, _What about Donna? She misses you so much it hurts to look at her sometimes, and she won't even let herself think we won't get you back -- you're willing to betray loyalty like that?_

Sam flinched slightly, but held his ground. "I wouldn't be abandoning them, really. You just said it yourself -- they'd be fine without the Project . . ."

"The Project?! None of us gives a damn about the Project anymore!" Al took a deep breath. "We just want you back."

The statement left Sam as stunned as if someone has smacked him between the eyes with a ball-peen hammer. For a few heartbeats, he just stared at Al, then glanced away momentarily to collect himself. When he met Al's eyes again, Al saw with infinite relief that, for the first time in this entire Leap, his friend was back with his feet firmly on the ground once more.

"I guess I've been kind of a jerk, huh?" Sam asked, wearing a ghost of a guilty, sheepish smile.

"Kind of. But that's okay -- you've been under a lot of stress. Sometimes you just forget that Sam Beckett is important, too."

"You should hear yourself, Al." The ghost of a smile grew stronger. "You sound like a bad New Age guru."

"Now ordinarily I'd deck you for that . . ."

"You could try," Sam told him.

" . . . But," Al continued airily, completely ignoring the interruption, "that's not an option right now, so I'll ignore the remark."

"Thank you," Sam said, tongue in cheek. He ran one hand over the dark, polished wood of the piano, and smiled as if remembering something amusing.

"You wouldn't believe some of the dreams I've been having," he said, "I had one where I was back in the Civil War."

"You're kidding -- that's way outside your lifespan."

"I know, but I had the exact same genetic code as my great-grandfather, so I could Leap into him."

Al mulled that over for a moment. Biology wasn't his strong point, but . . . "Isn't that kind of unlikely?"

Sam chuckled. "Astronomically unlikely. Even more unlikely than time travel. Oh, and I had one about vampires . . ."

_"Vampires?"_

"Uh-huh. At least my subconscious isn't boring." He gazed off into space, and his smile went sad and wistful. "I even dreamed I had a daughter once, during a Leap. Impossible, of course, since there's no way I could pass on my own genetic material when I'm wearing somebody else's body, but . . . it was quite a dream." He paused, then added as an afterthought, "I still remember: her name was Sammy Jo." He shook his head and glanced back at Al, who was giving him a very strange look.  
_Well no wonder,_ Sam thought. _I probably sound like a total Looney Tune. Maybe I am. The jury's still out on that one . . ._

Al cleared his throat. "Well, whatever. Dreams are dreams. All we can do now is concentrate on the matter at hand, right?"

The weight of his enforced vigil came crashing back down on Sam with an almost audible thump!, and he began twitching again almost immediately. A glance at the time told him it was getting late, and still no sign of either Megan or the Leap Effect.

"I wonder what they're doing," he grumbled -- then shot an angry look at Al before the other man could speak. "And that was a rhetorical question. I don't want to hear any speculations."

Al did his best to appear innocent and wounded.

Sam stood up from the piano bench and paced restlessly around the room. "Maybe . . . ow!" Without warning, he doubled over, as if in pain.

"What's the matter? Are you okay?" Al was at his side instantly, hovering worriedly.

"I don't know." Sam straightened up, frowning with concentration as he "listened" to his borrowed body, searching for unusual sensations. There were none. "I just . . . felt something. Not really painful, more surprising, like an electric shock, or a muscle spasm . . ." An unpleasant thought struck him. "Al, Kinsen doesn't have any kind of medical condition, does he?"

Al consulted the handlink and shook his head. "He's healthy as a horse, according to his records, right up till today," he said, meaning his own "today" and not Sam's.

"Then what . . ." Sam began, but Al was still focused on the handlink, which began chirping like a tiny synthesizer.

"Wait a minute, something's changing," Al said, and punched a few buttons.

Sam held his breath, hoping (and more than half expecting) to hear that Megan and Terrence were safely paired up together and he could expect to Leap any second. He was utterly unprepared for what came next.

Al looked up, openly appalled. "According to Ziggy, the past has changed: now Terrence is going to be killed two days from now."


End file.
